VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions Electric Cars - yes or no!

Production of an electric car started in 1907 with rechargeable lead-acid batteries. Around 1911 Edison nickel-iron batteries were introduced at a cost of $600. The electric cars at that time were getting 80 miles between battery charges. One Detroit-Electric ran 211.3 miles on a single charge. Now, 100 years later electric cars get (on average) around 40 miles per charge. It appears that the technology regarding electric cars might be going in the wrong direction!

Although not in production, EVs were around in the later 1800s and out numbered the GVs (gas vehicle) on road and I know oil was (at the time) cheaper than what was available for electric but don't you think it a little odd that with the speed of technology today as with cell phones, laptops and orbiting satellites that the Electric cars have fallen through the cracks? Maybe intentionally? After all how can you charge $5.00 a gal if you don't use gas? How can you push dope if you don't have junkies?

So call me cynical.

I'm not one to see "battery's" as the solution anyway but we do need another option.

41 Special Deluxe

I am so sorry that I hurt your radio's feelings. I was really just funnin' with you about the radio. There was no doubt that the people who are running GM and the post office will add a line or two more. After all, GM loses money on every Volt they sell, so what's a few dollars more amongst friends.

I was also just making jest about some of the other stuff. I guess I got too complicated. My point was that at such low numbers of the sale of electric (coal) vehicles, it would be a long time before we would not need gasoline as you suggested to Mr. Mack with your not needing to drill, baby, drill. I think Chrysler sold about 1.1 million cars last year. If one of their units sold just 5,100 cars that would be about 0.005% of sales. Hardly a mandate to get us to stop needing gasoline.

Actually, I agree you are correct that IF we get enough coal-driven cars on the road, we will not need gasoline. However, my other main point was that it will not be in my lifetime.

In the meantime, we need to drill, baby, drill or we'll have to buy more oil from the Canadians, Mexicans, and countries in Central and South America (we don't buy much Arab oil because it is too "sour" and more expensive to refine).

Remember, when you buy that gallon of gas the federal government gets about 19 cents in direct taxes, the states get from 30 to 60 cents in direct taxes; and the oil companies get 3-7 cents in net profit --- and the oil companies do all the work and take all the risk.

Also, the various governments get approximately 60-70% of oil company profits in various other taxes: income taxes; FICA; unemployment taxes; excise taxes; sales taxes; leases; etc. All of that has to be added to price of that gallon of gasoline.

Since I am in a truth or dare mood, I also confess that I was tempted to load the figures about a 2,000 trip in an all-electric/coal car by adding $9,250 in motel bills for 80 days to the cost of my trip to really seal the case against 25-mile range electric cars --- but decided to only include gasoline differences.

I must also confess that my next question to you was going to be "what color is your Volt?" But since I am heartbroken I picked on your radio, I must pass.

If your radio was correct that GM is adding one line and lets say they double production that means this line will build 3.54 cars per day. If they add a third shift to double sales that is less than 1 per day.

If they can sell the same amount as the Leaf that means about 75 more cars per month and that new shift will make about 1/3 a car a day. Now you now why I mentioned the post office as a frame of reference for Government Motors.

Enjoyed the chat, now I am about to fill my motorhome which gets 8 mpg. It has a 85 gallon tank so do the math. I am sure glad I bought energy stocks last summer!!!!!

PS I had a Yukon once and it was worth every penny I spent in gas. A great ride and a great SUV and a great one for towing.

I do beleive you are right. That would be called trying to re-invent the wheel with the "New and not so improved". What happened to the old and reliable? Or better yet, the old and reliable ways. Even though an electric car back then was considered the ladies car, i dont see what it would hurt to perhaps look back at the way THEY did it...and improve by making it reduced in size while not going backwards. It is possible. All you got to do is research. After all, the reason we have such modernity's of today is becouse of the inventors of the early 20th century. Surley if they can make a drill thats battery powered enough to just about take your hand off...they can make a car just as powerful, last just as long and is buyer friendly.

The range of any vehicle is a function of the amount of energy stored (in gas tank or the batteries), rolling & air resistance (read speed and shape), efficiency of the motor and other energy drains (radio, air conditioning, computer, etc.). There have been advances in both battery technology (amount of energy per space/ weight and recharge rate) and electric motor efficiency since the age of electric vehicles. It has not been nearly as dramatic as for internal combustion engines. Research continues to make improvements in both.

This is a club of car guys and I am surprised that no one has taken this view of electric vs gas cars.

I really think Chev has done a great job with the new Camaro so I decided to run some numbers on this great car against the Chev Volt. These numbers come from Chev publications.



CHEV CAMARO

BASE MSRP $22,805
MPG on gasoline 29
Price of gasoline $3.50 gal

CHEV VOLT

BASE MSRP $41,970
MPG on gasoline 35
MPG on electric 0
Price of gasoline $3.50

Using these figures I find the following: If you average 15,000 miles per year at $3.50 per gallon of gasoline the annual cost of gasoline for the Camaro would be $1,810. You could run the Camaro for almost 11 years before you would break-even on the difference in MSRP price of both. I don't know about you, but I have never kept my main driving car for 11 years so I would never break-even.

If you ran the Volt on half gas and half electric (which you would have to do if you want to drive more than 25 miles per day) it would be approximately 30 years for you to break even.

Not only that, the Camaro has a lot of room where, because of the batteries, we could not get my wife and I, our 4 cats, and a week's groceries in the Volt.

I can't imagine buying a Volt over the Camaro if for no other reason than I would feel I was being taken. I also don't buy ocean-front property in Arizona.

In response to poor sales of the Chev Volt in May, today the CEO of GM called for the government to add an additional $1 a gallon tax on gasoline to help force people to buy the Volt.

In May the Volt sold only 481 cars compared to 1,142 Nissan Leafs.

If they would add another $ a gal tax it would then be 482 Volts sold and 2,284 Leafs sold.

My wife and I drove our main driving car 39 years before it was totaled. I have driven my pickup for 40 years. My "stand by" pickup I have been driving for 40 years also. We have been driving our newest vehicle, which is now our main daily driver, for 21 years.

As a side note, I have been driving my '51 Chevy for 51 years.

I am totally with you on the Camaro vs. the Volt. The Volt is definitely not my cup of tea and I would have a new Camaro over the Volt any day of the week!

Dog:

You are a unique man among men. I have never know anyone to buy their main driver(s) new and keep it(them) that long. I salute you!

If we didn't need a SUV we would buy a Camaro as our main driver. It is one good lookin' car.

JYD Unique?...Yeah, he is, and he also gets what he wants out of a vehicle, not that that alone makes him unique, just practical! There are many more of us that do that.

Actually, all of the main drivers listed above we bought used. They were only a couple of years old when we purchased them, but they were all used cars at the time.

My '51 Chevy was 10 years old when I got that vehicle.

Thanks for the salute!

If you stay on the hilltop except for an occasional haircut and trip to the grocery store you can keep vehicles for many decades. But if you leave your county and state on a regular basis you can only keep them for a decade or less.

Mr Mack

I salute all of you who can do that. I only wish I had those skills. I have incurred enough depreciation on my cars in the last 50 years to buy a house!!!

Chipper:

We travel a lot, and drive our main driver 25,000 or more miles a year and have never felt comfortable keeping our main driver over 50,000 miles. Today I keep them to 90,000 but trade in before the warranty expires at 100,000. I can't fix them myself.

Today our two daily drivers have less than 100K miles. We average ~ 40k each year between them. Just completed a 10 day 3500 mile trip to assemble '28 Coach, move parents to CA and return. Here in Texas we think nothing about 50 mile trip to eat dinner. Of course sometimes that is the closest restaurant worth eating at as McDs is not an option!

Oh Chippy Dippy...how totally wrong you are!! On the vehicles mentioned above we have driven them, so far, a total of 960,000 miles and other than the one that was totaled, they are all still going strong!!



Based on your posting above, it looks like you are the one that never gets off of the "hill top" with your daily drivers.

Chipper:

Know what you mean about driving 30 miles to get somewhere. We spend the winters in AZ and travel between AZ, WA, and farm country in the midwest every year (going from one end of Texas to the other at least once a year). We have a main driver, a second driver, and a motorhome so we spread 35-50,000 miles a year between the 3. Some years we also go up to Maine.

A lot of gas but we love this great country of ours and want to travel it as long as we can.

I'm guessing that you guys in Texas are going to roll up a lot more "hiway" miles, as they are a lot easier on a car versus city driving, and only going a few kms at a time. You guys in the south have it easier too, as rust from the winter salt isn't a factor. Up here 100 000 km (60 000 miles?) is a good run for a car that is used all year, then you're looking at quite a bit of work. By the time you get to 200 000kms, they are really showing it! Mine are under oiled every fall, but salt gets everywhere!

It'll be interesting to see how these electric cars handle the winter...

ATT Electric Car Owners!!

According to US News and World Report today, 2 new regulations of the EPA will cost the coal-fired power plant industry $180 billion.

A new study based on government data has found it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and greatly increase the price of electricity.

Of interest to this thread, since coal is the major source of electricity in this country it will boost electric prices 11% to 23%. The EPA claims the hit the industry and consumers will take is worth the health benefits of cleaner air.

For people who drive electric cars this will cost them the same percentage increase in the cost of electricity for their cars as this year's increasing the price of gasoline from $3 a gallon to $3.69 has cost drivers of gasoline vehicles.

This comes on the heels of several states announcing plans to charge electric car owners a special tax each year because they do not pay gas taxes.

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its a NO for me.
making electric cars uses more resources than just using petrol or diesel engines, so why bother?
keep on using fossil fuels until they run out and then go back to horse and donkey power. Their poo will power the world for many years in time, it makes great fuel for cooking, ask the Indian continent? less stress and GM and ford executives will learn to do everything slowly and with a purpose..