Originally Posted by
TVDOC
True.....however the overriding problem with "electric cars" is twofold:
1. It's old, old technology, and has been around in various forms since the last two decades of the ninteenth century, and has never been successful, even in the "horse and buggy" era, when distances travelled were tiny, and there were absolutely no standards for passenger impact protection and other safety factors adding additional weight to the vehicle.
2. Most importantly, you can't repeal the laws of Physics......it will always require "x" amount of electrical energy to move a vehicle with a mass of "y" pounds over a distance of "z" miles (ambient temperatures and road friction being a given constant). The storage "battery" has been around since the Babylonians invented it 5,000 years ago, and except for more efficient materials, it hasn't changed appreciably since......a "cell" is only capable of delivering 1.3 to 3.0 volts, and the current storage capacity is limited by size and weight.....you can build them larger, but all that accomplishes is that as that is done, they consume more of their own stored power moving the mass of the battery itself (and lengthen the recharge cycle), and there becomes a theoretical point where the two curves (range vs size/mass) intersect.......
With all of the components required to make a vehicle that meets safety (and other) standards, the minimum mass is about 1800 pounds, which creates a theoretical maximum range (under optimum conditions) of about 80 miles of flat road between charges. With a regenerative charging system (braking charging), you might under optimum conditions stretch that to 100 miles......sometimes......but under no conditions would it ever exceed this......ever......
Regardless of how exotic the materials used to manufacture the cells, the charging cycle remains long (relatively), and cannot be altered, as such, these will always be a limited-use type transportation......limited to short urban commutes, and "shopping cart" applications.......never a "mass-market" solution. The US is a vast country, and Americans travel over long distances, carrying (relatively) large loads of passengers and cargo. Electric vehicles will never be a solution for these driving patterns, and therefore will not be any more practical than they were in 1890.....
Back to the topic, I would be remiss if I didn't reinforce the fact that the "Volt" was never intended to be a production vehicle.......it was built by GM as a "concept car" for the New York and Detroit Auto Shows, and as such was NOT really anything more than an "idea" to attract the tree-huggers......it was only after the Obama administration saw it that it was forced into production and that was done in a slipshod manner, which has resulted in a myriad of problems and issues with its use in the marketplace.........regardless of which manufacturer makes them, they will never be a profit center, and sales will be small due to their limited application.
GM, Ford (with a Ranger pickup), and Chrysler all built limited runs of electric vehicles in the '90's and essentially gave/leased them away to various drivers (mostly in California), and after years of testing and research......abandoned them as impractical and unprofitable (especially GM, after their vehicles burned down several houses when their batteries overheated under charging).
Exotic designs of "hybrid" technology can and likely will be devised, but to be practical, American vehicles will always require a source of fuel to operate over long distances, and until someone manages to build a quantum generator, the least expensive and most practical source of that energy will, for the forseeable future be hydrocarbons........wishing isn't going to change this.......
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doc
