[jpzk]

That should please a few people ... in spite of their rather small ranges and high prices, electric cars will no doubt become more and more popular.

Nissan Leaf is now available.
Nissan LEAF Electric Car

Ford will have an electric car as well: Fords All-Electric Car Debuts at Tech Show | Internetbits - Net News

and GM has the Volt: GM-Volt: Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

but my all time favoritte is the Tesla: http://www.teslamotors.com/
Now, that's one great looking car!!
Up to 295 lbs-ft of torque and 288 horsepower are produced as the car smoothly accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7seconds. Hand-built, carbon fiber body. can drive 245 miles per charge. It plugs into nearly any outlet, anywhere in the world. ... $125,000 !

JP

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Last edited by jpzk; 01-10-2011 at 09:26 PM.

[lithos]

Ford has teamed up with Microsoft to assist homeowners charge the vehicles at a lower cost than its competitors.

Er, what's that joke about Microsoft making a car?

[jpzk]

Ford has teamed up with Microsoft to assist homeowners charge the vehicles at a lower cost than its competitors.

Er, what's that joke about Microsoft making a car?

That could be a very good joke

Actually, Ford has teamed up with Microsoft to equip the Focus Electric with a feature which allows owners to charge the car during off peak hours.

I wonder if the Microsoft gurus - Gates, Balmer & Co. - drive electric cars yet, or if they have any intention of doing so.

JP

[deadwolfbones]

This one is my favorite: Porsche unveils 918 RSR, the 767hp hybrid -- Engadget

[RayGunn]

That should please a few people ... in spite of their rather small ranges and high prices, electric cars will no doubt become more and more popular.
Nissan Leaf is now available.
JP

Well, sort of available. Available if you live in, or are close to, the few cities in the few states, here in the USofA, which have dealers which might be able to find one for you.
If Nissan is correct about the number of people whom have placed a deposit on one, and all those people actually purchase one, they will not be available to anyone else for quite some time.
RayGunn

[Ratmagiclady]

Well, sort of available. Available if you live in, or are close to, the few cities in the few states, here in the USofA, which have dealers which might be able to find one for you.
If Nissan is correct about the number of people whom have placed a deposit on one, and all those people actually purchase one, they will not be available to anyone else for quite some time.
RayGunn

That's how it was with the first hybrids, actually. Not a bad sign for sales and all, ...and some of those electric car plants are here in America, so it coud be something helpful happening all around.
Electric cars in the cities will mean those cities start putting in some infrastructure, and that'll tend to spread, too.

[Phil1]

A good friend has had a Leaf on order since November. He is getting strocked on delivery which is now expected to be April-ish. It seems Nissan has been very busy with the advance publicity but is somewhat slow on filling the pipeline.

Also Ford has had some EV annoucements at the Detroit auto show but availablity is a ways off. Worth a peek if you are inclined.

[eddie1960]

the best way to save the planet (and your health)
BTW I don't believe anyone has managed the claimed range on a tesla yet (it sure is a pretty car though)

[SMPhoto]

This one is my favorite: Porsche unveils 918 RSR, the 767hp hybrid -- Engadget

I'll take two

[Ratmagiclady]

Heehee, Eddie, yeah, not driving so much is of course best.

(Actually means it wouldn't be very 'eco' of us to buy a new car for the sake of such being a hybrid or electric: wouldn't be saving enough gas to justify building a whole new car, anyway. Of course, if my sweetie ends up with a commute somewhere (A thing we're trying to avoid, of itself) that might change.

(By the way, the Microsoft thing, for who asked, was about an old joke, 'If cars were like Microsoft-running computers, you's spend a lot of money on a car, which would occasionally slow down and then suddenly stop running entirely for no apparent reason. You'd get out and restart the car and consider this perfectly-acceptable.' )

[boriscleto]

That could be a very good joke

Actually, Ford has teamed up with Microsoft to equip the Focus Electric with a feature which allows owners to charge the car during off peak hours.

I wonder if the Microsoft gurus - Gates, Balmer & Co. - drive electric cars yet, or if they have any intention of doing so.

JP

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

[casil403]

While I think it is great that companies are looking at alternative fuel sources, sometimes I have to wonder how "green" they really are.
Electric cars are charged using coal fired power plants which in turn also pollute the air and the earth.
While there are no exhaust emitted by the vehicles themselves, the fact that they are being charged using electricity (of which the majority comes) from coal fired electrical power plants makes me wonder if it is all a bit of hype really.

Just my $0.02 on the subject.

[eddie1960]

While I think it is great that companies are looking at alternative fuel sources, sometimes I have to wonder how "green" they really are.
Electric cars are charged using coal fired power plants which in turn also pollute the air and the earth.
While there are no exhaust emitted by the vehicles themselves, the fact that they are being charged using electricity (of which the majority comes) from coal fired electrical power plants makes me wonder if it is all a bit of hype really.

Just my $0.02 on the subject.

not too mention the environmental toll of the batteries and manufacturing process it makes my head hurt when i think about it. really hydrogen seems the best and most neglected option. Byproduct + water
tech not there yet but devote the capital to it and it would be

[boriscleto]

There is also this

If Cars Were Like Operating Systems

And this is a real oldie.

If OS's Were Cars

I'm not sure of the source of this, but it's a fairly good comparitive survey of operating systems:

If operating systems ran your car, and you needed to go to the shops...

MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put the keys.

Windows: You get in the car and drive to the shops very slowly, because attached to the back of the car is a freight train.

Macintosh System 7: You get in the car to drive to the shops and the car drives you to church.

Unix: You get in the car and type 'grep store'. After reaching speeds of 200 mph en route, you arrive at the barbershop.

Windows NT: You get in the car and write a letter that says "go to the shops". Then you get out of the car and nail the letter to the dashboard.

Taligent/Pink: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his LearJet.

OS/2: After fuelling up with 6000 gallons of fuel, you get in the car and drive to the shops with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everyone.

S/36 SSP: You get in the car and drive to the shops. Halfway there you run out of fuel. While walking the rest of the way, you are run over by kids with mopeds.

AS/400: An attendant kicks you into the car and then drives you to the shops where you get to watch everyone else buying filets mignon.

[ve2vfd]

Indeed the battery manufacturing and disposal is a NIGHTMARE that most people conveniently ignore when dealing with electric cars.

I've got a bit of an insider point of view on this subject as a member of my family was on the design/engineering team who created the battery and charging system for the Bombardier plug in electrical vehicles a few years ago.

Even if we were to ignore the fact that much of the electricity in the US comes from dirty sources like burning coal or oil, the fabrication and then disposal of the massive batteries for those cars is very dirty and nowhere near as "environmentally friendly" as those who like to pat themselves on the back for driving those "clean cars" like to think.

Don't get me wrong though, I am all for moving forward to new automotive technologies... I strongly believe we've been stagnating for too long in this field. But the fact is that the current crop of EV's is nowhere near as "clean" as people like to think.

Pat