New Plug-in Electric Car Company

[Mike Monett]

On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 07:09:12 -0700 (PDT), Rob Mitchell

Designing a car, $22,000 isn't seed money, it's barely beer money.

John

That may be the plan

Mike Monett

 

[Eeyore]

Dirk Bruere wrote

That's why they stopped making the Saturn SL1. Larger profit margins on
SUVs.

OK, my 2002 does have air conditioning and power steering

What amamzes me is that the Infinity I35 (whcih they also stopped making) is
a fairly large car, very nice interior, comfortable, has more than enough
"zip", and gets about 26MPG mixed city-highway. Meanwhile the much smaller,
cramped, delayed-accelerating, poorly-handling, hard-riding G35 that I had as
a loaner didn't even reach 20MPG. I was looking at new cars becasue I'd
thought that, Surely there are now ones that get better MPHG than my SL1, but
amazingly, even the teensy cars weren't any better (I get about 30MPH mixed,
and teh tiny ones max at about 35 mpg *highway*, but there is no way of
telling what the Mixed mpg works out to be).

So I'm not getting rid of my SL1 any time soon...

But American 'cars' are weird anyway. Who really needs a Dodge Ram except to
compensate for a small willy ?

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

ONLY 2 tons ?

They need a safe family car, not a 2-seat plastic roadster with zero luggage space.

I totally agree. The Tesla is a rich man (or woman's) toy and no more.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Don't batteries lose capacity as the temperature drops?

Typically, yes. I think the internal resistance/impedance goes up too.

For those in colder climates might not work too great..

Agreed. Not to mention the need for cabin heating in winter which'll gobble kW
like nothing else. Maybe the EV'ers would suggest carrying a paraffin /
kerosone stove ?

We don't all live in Florida or California.

From experience with my Saab, heated seats help though. Hmmm, snuggly ! I could
wear short sleeve shirts even in the middle of winter.

Graham

 

[Richard The Dreaded Libertarian]

Sure the price will drop as they automate the assembly of the vehicle.
That's what gets me about regular car prices, alot of the car is put
together by machines these days. Yet the prices don't seem to come down
much.

That's because of the unions.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Eeyore]

That's because of the unions.

Ah yes, being paid to play cards etc and NOT make cars. Only in America.

Graham

 

[[email protected]]

Welll .... if that electricity comes from carbon or hydrocarbon sources then
there's no benefit at all.

Better start building those new generation nukes ! Biggest order so far for
the French firm Areva which I reckon to be the market leader ? CHINA !
Something like 6 units on order there alone. India's building some too.

Graham

Even if the electricity comes from hydrocarbon sources, the efficiency
of a stationary electric power plant is greater than that of a vehicle
engine, which has made compromises in efficiency in order to be
lightweight, portable and affordable for the general public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine

Plus, it's easier to do something with the CO2 emissions from a few
large sources than from millions of small sources.

Michael

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Hiring can be damn expensive. Plus you have to adapt to an unfamiliar car.

The cost of a hire car would be quite a bit less than the petrol I used.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

I always love that fable.



The cost of the battery.

Again, I do not see why that should not drop in price as well, at least
to the point of an equivalent lead-acid system.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Yes you need a PHEV which is what GM at least is developing seriously.

The issue of recharging points is an EXTREMELY valid one too. Who's going to pay
for them and who's going to stop vandals from trashing them ?

Inductive charge points in Tesco car park?

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Which will offer ZERO CO2 emissions benefit.



Bwahahahahhaahahaaaaa ! Do you think they only just invented them ? And it IS
done on a large scale !

PV solar is INSANELY expensive by design. Only Nanosolar are claiming to offer
anything better but they won't release data. Smells of something nasty to me.

Nanosolar have just had a $300m injection of capital to boost their
production capacity.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[[email protected]]

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:







Would it meet today's safety standard for a new vehicle?

not even close, it would be like comparing jumping out of a plane with
and
without a parachute

recently saw a a frontal collison test of two cars, same model, one of
them just
10 years old, both had gotten five euro NCAP stars when they were
new.

after the crash;

new car: driver could mostly likely have walked away
old car: driver most likely dead or close to it, and with both legs
broken and stuck beneath
the dash.


-Lasse

 

[Martin Griffith]

Again, I do not see why that should not drop in price as well, at least
to the point of an equivalent lead-acid system.

a few more numbers here
http://www.dancewithshadows.com/avi...mini-plane-makes-flying-cheaper-than-driving/

martin

 

[Martin Griffith]

On Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:12:56 -0400, in sci.electronics.design "Michael

snip

In England they are paid to drink crappy tea and not make those
little clown cars.

Yes, you have Starbucks, and that dodo, the US auto industry
touché.

martin

 

[[email protected]]

And these are the cars some Europeans keep telling us belong on US
roads?

five NCAP stars is a very safe car, the point was that a car that got
five stars
ten years ago is not nearly as safe a car that gets five stars now....

-Lasse

 

[Rob Mitchell]

Rob Mitchellwrote:


It doesn't take big bucks to do useful stuffhttp://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/delorean/

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/- Transcendence UKhttp://www.theconsensus.org/- A UK political partyhttp://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5- Ourpodcasts on weird stuff- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Very cool!

 

[Martin Griffith]

Starbucks? I have never been in any of them. I haven't even had a
cup of coffee in almost 40 years. Not to mention, but over 600
Starbucks? are being phased out.

It's Europe where those tiny, death traps on wheels are made, not the
US.

Been to a Starbucks once , in the UK, to use the internet, the
keyboard was so filthy I asked for a pair of rubber gloves. Got my
money back

You are still building the Titanics of transport.
have another look at this
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/11/10/the-5th-gear-smart-crash-video/

It's just that the US could not mass produce anything this good
anymore, a great shame.


martin

 

[Martin Griffith]

England built the Titanic.

But you are still building them or maybe

martin

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

a few more numbers here
http://www.dancewithshadows.com/avi...mini-plane-makes-flying-cheaper-than-driving/

martin

That's pretty impressive!
I can see flying schools buying some of these.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

 

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Rather tahn me just specualting, I did a search:

https://shop.sae.org/technical/papers/970743
QUOTED MATERIAL: "The main conclusions from this work are that: fuel type
and equivalence ratio have major influences on both total hydrocarbon and
methane emissions; spark timing affects total hydrocarbon and methane
emissions significantly; increasing engine speed decreases total
hydrocarbon emissions for both fuels; during cold start and warm-up
operations, gasoline emitted a much higher excess of total hydrocarbons at
first start compared with natural gas; and exhaust gas recirculation gave
lower oxides of nitrogen emissions for natural gas than for gasoline
fuelling."

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/natural_gas_emissions.html
QUOTED MATERIAL: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated the
potential benefits of CNG versus gasoline based on the inherently cleaner-
burning characteristics of natural gas, summarized in Clean Alternative
Fuels: Compressed Natural Gas (PDF 76 KB). Download Adobe Reader.

Reduce carbon monoxide emissions 90%-97%
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions 25%
Reduce nitrogen oxide emissions 35%-60%
Potentially reduce non-methane hydrocarbon emissions 50%-75%
Emit fewer toxic and carcinogenic pollutants
Emit little or no particulate matter
Eliminate evaporative emissions "


http://74.125.95.104/search?
q=cache:QP5PFW8hoGoJ:www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/big_rig_cleanup/natural-
gas-vehicles.html+emissions+comparison+natural-
gas+gasoline&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us

Here is the Google search line I used:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=emissions+comparison+natural-
gas+gasoline



Not yet, it isn't. What will lower prices most significantly is increasing
conversion of gov.t buildings. Alhtough conversions being done by
corporations such as WalMart will also be an important factor.

Interestingly, I've not seen discussion of the effect of the rooftop shade
offered by solar panels.

Also, given that teh power utilities do buy back power, that would
contribute to the long-term savings offered by solar.

And before denegrating *every* non-petroleum energy source, how about
offering a solution to a finite resource (other than that you believe
you'll croak off before it runs out)?

It's real easy to sit on one's ass, say "that's stupid", and merely
contribute to the problem - what's hard is getting off one's ass and taking
some sort of action that's actually constructive.


By design, ro by circumstance or necessity...?


It's called "proprietary info", and it's common for companies in all
sectors to not release their trade secrets. What will need to be seen is
what results are shown from tests.


Yes, despite the naysayers and those who are addicted to the status quo, at
least some people *are* doing research and testing ideas.

And one might suppose that people investing $300m actually look at the
tech in some detail.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff