Electric car..the myth of greenness...
- Thread starter Gilligan
- Start date
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Crap article. They don't even dig into the real problems of the mining and manufacturing impact of a batt car vs. a 10 year old pick up. And the replacement batteries.
No, they didn't. But considering the liberal rag that published it, I'll call it a win anyway.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Yes of course...what we should do is wait until the PERFECT solution comes along...the one that solves all problems forever. This is apparently the only solution that is acceptable.
Listening to Gilligan piss and moan you would think we went directly from transistors to the I-phone 22 with its circuitry hard wired into our brains.
Listening to Gilligan piss and moan you would think we went directly from transistors to the I-phone 22 with its circuitry hard wired into our brains.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
If you and I were not subsidizing it, don't you think that folks who were dealing with market forces would be far more likely to come up with more better solutions? I do.
Gilligan has forgotten more about higher forms of technology than your sorry arse will ever even learn to pronounce, much less understand. Go crawl back in your hole and play with yourself.
Salvador
One Nation Under God
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Self Important Bald Twit
I saw them. Solo's were kinda long...
Grumpy
Well-Known Member
Go away, don't you and your buddy Itsrequired have a Sonic commercial to make?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Self Important Bald Twit
Hiya Sally. Always good to see your demented self pop up every once in a while.
You ever get over that radiation sickness?
PeoplesElbow
Well-Known Member
You can build a perfectly good hybrid using Lead Acid batteries, it doesn't have a lot of range on battery only but that isn't the point. As a student I did it, cost to replace the entire battery pack $1500, then you just drop the old one off at the recycling center.
It's certainly not a new technology... ;-)
http://library.mysticseaport.org/manuscripts/coll/coll213.cfm
http://library.mysticseaport.org/manuscripts/coll/coll213.cfm
H
Hodr
Guest
The Prius C, the currently highest MPG non-plugin hybrid uses a lead acid battery.
--Edit to add a missing word---
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H
Hodr
Guest
I am interested in electric vehicles not for the green aspect, but for the value proposition. If they manage to drop to ~20k I may end up purchasing one.
But I think that article does a bit of disservice assuming the people who are concerned with saving the environment would use dirty coal power to charge their cars.
Case in point, Tesla has free charging from the supercharger stations which are solar powered. Also, the highest (by a huge margin) concentration of electric vehicles is in California, which gets most of it's power from Hydro-Electric and Nuclear sources.
And as to the lithium issue, while it is costly it still makes up a minimal percentage of the cost of the battery pack. And the reason it is so expensive (despite being one of the most abundant elements on earth) is that it is found in low concentrations. Current extraction technologies require finding source deposits of greater than 5% purity, or straining from sea water. There are new processes coming online commercially that will make it cheaper to mine the tailings from existing sources (the 1-4% tailings), including from mines that don't target lithium, than the cost of regular mining. These tailings are abundant enough to more than double worldwide production.
As for disposal? Lithium is easy to recycle and not particularly toxic. And Halogen-free electrolyte solutions are being developed by multiple sources as a replacement to the current solutions, the most toxic part of the batteries, with little to no expected impact to performance.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
Got it in one! Making a rechargeable battery isn't new technology - there's just no market incentive to make a really good one for an electric car, as long as Uncle Sam keeps footing the bill so they can make a profit.
I know there are those who think that the market needs to be primed so they can create demand for an electric car and get the cycle of improved technology going, but I don't know historically where that's worked.
And yet from an energy efficiency and cost-benefit standpoint, the technology is still better and still improving for internal combustion power. I'm expecting to see CNG take a bigger chunk of the transportation sector..now that makes some sense to me; a lot more than electric does right now. But even good ole gasoline remains king, with some small commuter vehicles coming out now that achieve 80 mpg and more on the way.