Would you buy a pure electric car?
If it had a range of 300+ miles, and top speed of 70 mph? If you knew you would save thousands of dollars not buying gasoline? From nations unfriendly to the U.S.A. and hostile to our way of life? And save more thousands of dollars on vehicle maintenance and replacement costs?
Toyota, GM and other large vehicle manufacturers say there is no demand for electric vehicles. I believe they are wrong and I am hoping you folks will help me prove that.
I say, they (the “big three” car makers) are hooked on internal combustion motors because of tooling charges. I also suspect that the large vehicle manufacturers are on the payroll of the oil companies to keep the internal combustion motor. To say nothing about maintenance fees we have to pay for maintaining the internal combustion motors.
Thanks all of you for your answers! I wish I could give you all best answer but they won’t let me.
I do dispute one point made, however…. that is that automakers produce what the general public wants. There a very large number of people that want electric vehicles.
Have you read the Toyota excuse for discontinuing the RAV4-EV? http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/rav4ev/ They say they marketed extensively but sold only 300 vehicles each year it was offered. I do not remember seeing one ad for the RAV4-EV car.
Okay, so I live in New England and here, is not where the legislature made the car makers build these vehicles (California). Car makers lobbied legislatures and even brought suit against California so they would not have to build electric cars. That does not sound to me like they are that interested in doing what the public wants.
I don’t know about the compressed air vehicle. You still need to create electricity or run a gasoline motor to “charge” that tank. A small gas motor may be able to “charge” the tank over a period of time but it would not be enough to power a car across the state let alone the country as suggested in another post.
As for recycling batteries, the lead acid battery materials are almost completely recyclable. The lead inside and the plastic in the cases. I suppose even the acid could be purified and recycled. I am not sure about the NiMH batteries that are used in some hybrid cars today. However, I have read that NiZn batteries are also highly recyclable.
Yes, replacement of the battery pack can run into a large expense but the life span of many batteries these days matches or exceeds the life of the vehicles. And we have not even talked about the comparison between maintenance requirements of the gasoline vehicles and those of an electric vehicle.
Okay, I’m done… thanks for letting me vent.. and thanks for your comments!!
j
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Comments on Would you buy a pure electric car?
understand that the automakers, ALL of them, only sell what the general public wants, and what the government allows. internal combustion engines have been around for more than 120 years, and the infrastructure has been developed over that period of time to support the internal combustion engine.
as for buying a pure electric car, yes i would buy one, it wouldnt even have to have a 300 mile range, 200 would do nicely.
I think some of the work being done with compressed air engines will make electrics obsolete. There are a couple of prototypes out that will go 300 miles on a tank charged to 1400PSI and they’ll do 70MPH. With a small lawn mower type motor and compressor which only comes on when the pressure gets low then shuts down again, you could drive across the US on a tank of gas. The prohibitive cost of the batteries, facilities to recharge them, plus the recycling problems makes them a big liability for mass production in autos.
I and a lot of other people would buy an all-electric car if it had the mileage and speed that you suggested, and the cost was reasonable, and if battery maintenace and replacement cost was not a problem.
Unfortunately, as the situation is today, none of these conditions exist. Range is short, speed is relatively low, cost is high, and batteries are heavy, expensive, and require maintenance. But things are improving fairly rapidly as technology improves and becomes cheaper. It will be a few years, however, before an all-electric will be acceptable for me and most other automotive consumers.
Heck, I’d buy one that got 120 MPC. I sat down and figured out what my vehicle needs are and on my “worst” day I’d put on 84 miles and that happens only 1 day a month. I don’t need 300 miles of range or that quick 5-10 minute magic recharge. Because I would leave the house every morning with a full load of “fuel”. So gassing up during the day isn’t required. And for that one day a year I drive to my dad’s house 325 miles away I’ll either borrow or rent a gas burner with good highway mileage.
Driving an EV is far more convenient than people realize. Get home at night, plug the car in, eat dinner and go to bed. Get up in the morning, get dressed, unplug the car and leave everyday with a full load of “fuel”. This simple scenario seems to beyond the grasp of the population. Only 2 minor steps added to the usual routine and you’ve made the world a better place.
To quote Ed Begley Jr. “What the detractors and critics of electric vehicles have been saying for years, is true. The electric vehicle is not for everybody, given the limited range it can only meet the needs of 90% of the population.” Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” also makes many good points about the automobile and pollution.
Have you seen the film “Who Killed the Electric Car”, it shows the real situation with all of the gory details. Also check out Plug In America’s web site at http://pluginamerica.org for the truth without the oil or car companies getting in the way. The gentleman that put up the site http://sealbeach.org has a 2002 RAV4-EV that is still running. He charges it with solar panels on the roof and drives around for free which is my goal.
DEFINITELY I WOULD AS LONG AS THE PRICES CAN BE KEPT REASONABLE, MOST OF MY TRAVELING IS UNDER 50 MILES ROUND TRIP SO I DON’T SEE ANY PROBLEM WITH THESE CARS. I AGREE THAT THE OIL COMPANIES ARE IN WITH THE VEHICLE MANUFACTURERS WITH MANY POLITICAL ALLIES TO KEEP EV’S OFF THE MARKET.
I just traded my 2001 Toyota Camry in on a 2005 Toyota Prius. I can already see the difference. My mpg has about doubled. I do most of my driving in and around town. At one point in US history, there were more electric vehicles on the road than there were gas-powered ones.
You write that “the big three” are hooked on internal combustion motors and suspect that they are on the payroll of the oil companies. I would also suspect that there is a political aspect of this as well.
Back to your question, if an electric car became available with the parameters you describe, and it had a reasonable price on it, I would want one.