How Not To Save Detroit

Here NOW means the technology is ready. A manufacturing commitment IS NOT. By the definition you are imposing nothing counts till somebody is actually manufacturing it. A bit unreasonable.

I'm NOT wrong! I'm NOT wrong! (stamps feet, pouts)

Ummmm... energy density of batteries, and the second law of thermodynamics?

Vaporware. Also looks like a crap design with excessive rolling resistance. (note also that the speeds/terrains at which the given ranges are quoted is not given)

Please STFU and go away. Please.

nate

Except the L-Ion battery is working well. But improvements already exist but need manufacturing. Even the L-Ion battery is not being made in production quantities because of the OPPOSITION to it. GM - Exxon etc. With some commitment we could have the electric car at affordable prices within a few years. But it will NEVER happen as long as GM is committed to PREVENTING it from EVER being built! All we will ever see is glorified GOLF CARTS.. THAT is what GM and Exxon wants. Get ready for $5 a gallon for gas and more.

So you admit you're wrong then.

nate

So you admit you're wrong then.

YOU are INSANE.

Ah, I get it now. You saw a shitty movie and now you think you're an engineer.

nate

Those words in caps just don't work. Make you sound unbalanced. Just friendly advice.

--Vic

Forget GM for the moment.

For $50k, the Tesla is pretty darn competitive, offers a 300 mile range, and

45 minute recharge. Closer than anything GM has done, if you can believe the hype.

GM and Honda both found that if you dont overcharge the battery pack, and that if you dont run it below 30% charge, they can last a long time.

My son and his wife each have hybrids...one an Insight and the other a Civic. They are now

6 years old and neither has needed new batteries. The claims that you have to rebattery them every couple of years is just BS. The Insight gets up to about 60mpg+ and the Civic gets 44-48.

Vic Smith wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

If the technology is ready(practical),and there's a market,some company WOULD jump right in.There would be great profits to be made. Of course,the business climate Obama has fostered could be a giant raodblock in itself.

You just keep impaling yourself on the horns of your own false dilemma. The electric car is neither impossible nor ready.

I admit only that they killed the EV-1.

Your second statement doesn't even make sense. The lithium ion battery is a significant improvement over nickel metal hydride. It has been around for quite a while now. However, it still does not even approach the energy density of gasoline. Furthermore, lithium ion batteries have significant problems for automotive use.

Provide me specifics about this battery that don't require watching a propaganda piece. The only Chinese electric car battery I can find is from the BYD battery company; they're using a LiFePO4 battery (probably without paying the American company which developed that technology any royalties), which, while it lacks some of the drawbacks of lithium-cobalt-oxide or lithium-manganese-oxide cells, in fact has a lower energy density than those technologies.

Anyone with the money can order as many lithium ion or lithium polymer batteries as they can afford. They've been in production for years. Most portable computers and cell phones use them. Nobody opposes them, except in your own feverish imagination.

And is pure vaporware. They've already raised the price on the Roadster -- AFTER taking people's deposits.

That's with NiMH chemistries, not lithium-ion. Lithium ion cannot tolerate any overcharge, is also relatively intolerant of undercharge, and degrades both by time and charge cycle.

"krp" wrote: GM made a FEW electric cars, refused to sell them, then DESTROYED them when the people who used them LOVED the cars.

When a GOOD battery that gave vastly more performance was announced, EXXON bought the company, CLOSED IT and GM shredded the cars. __________________________________________________________________

At LAST! I've been WEARING this uncomfortable tinfoil hat for YEARS hoping you would make CONTACT.

You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. YEARS AGO, this same EXXON (read big OIL) bought up all the PATENTS on the 100-mpg CARBURETOR and kept it OFF the market, FORCING us to GO THROUGH decades of POOR gas MILEAGE.

Keep UP the good WORK.

Rodan.

Total vapourware. The energy requirements for such vehicles cannot be met by any existing battery storage system. Batteries haven't kept pace with wishfull thinking. Nothing has happened with the car(s) since the hype.

The motive energy requirements for electric vehicles are the same as for "conventional" vehicles. If a Veyron requires 750kW to do 400 km/h (safely), then the 480kW in Eliica are clearly insufficient for the same speed at similar levels of safety.

The Eliica is longer and heavier (by more than half a ton) than the Veyron. This would indicate larger motive power requirements if all other functional parameters remain the same.

Furthermore, putting electric motors into the wheels is *stupid* in terms of vehicle dynamics and mechanical life. Increasing the unsprung mass means that both handling and ride suffer. The motors in the wheel are exposed to almost the whole dynamic vibration spectrum of the car on a road. Most roads are not as smooth as Nardo test track. Heat from braking will impose a high thermal load on the motors.

[Regenerative braking isn't useful for anything more than about 0.1g as the charge cannot be stored in the batteries.]

The motor-in-wheel design is to maximise drivetrain efficiency; but it compromises handling, ride and durability.

The article compared a 2CV (designed in the 1930's) with an electric research vehicle.

Final paragraph:

Car needs energy

Ordinary car's power consumption is 5.5ps/hour(=4kWh). How much electricity does your family use? In my house, consumption of electricity is limitted up to 40A by breaker. In Japan, voltage of electricity is 100V, The maximal power I can use in my house is 4kW. Car always uses the energy which is equal to my house's maximal power consumption.

In the acceleration mode, my EV's ammeter indicates 100-200A. It's unbelievable. My EV has the small moter that generates 15kW continuous. But 15kW is more than four times of my house's maximal power consumption. Even the my small EV uses huge energy to drive. If the car has more power, it's terrible.

We cannot realize the power consumption of petrol engine car. The voltage of the batteries installed on EV is similar to the electricity supplied to our houses. It's easy to compare the power consumption. If the car uses any fuel, the car which has same weight and performance uses same energy. The EV is not a panacea for the problems of pollution. We have to consider the state of the car.

The most-hyped production electric vehicle, the Tesla also doesn't actually deliver what it promises; unless you believe that a car that looks like a sports car shouldn't be driven like a sports car. When it is driven like one, the range is reduced from the claimed

200 miles, to less than 60 miles. This is not unexpected; for those who understand the underlying engineering issues.

You've put forth one conspiracy theory after another, just because they are in a film is irrelevant.

Then build it and sell it.

LOL. There are investors for anything that can show a profit.

Why? That's the thing lacking in these 'GM killed it' conspiracy theories. GM doesn't give a shit what powers a car. They care about selling cars. Selling what people will buy. Well that is before they became a UAW welfate state.

So build electric cars and put them under. That's how a free market works.

In a free country with a free market GM could do no such thing.

Again, exactly how can any corporation bury your electric car company? They can't, but with one exception, and that exception is government burying your electric car company for them. So your problem isn't with GM, but the government. That's where their spending counts.

But, you still haven't pointed out why GM just doesn't build these wonderful electric cars themselves. The electric utilities are giant companies too, like big oil. Neither big oil nor GM have any conspiracy going on between them. If GM and big oil were really together why did big oil constrict the flow of gasoline to retail sale and drive the price up to over $4/gal?? If GM had this 'finished' electric car, shouldn't they have, at this betrayal by big oil said 'f' you too' and released it for sale?

Nahh... you don't let the limits of current engineering bother your views so why let the logic of profit and loss and business relations?

SO they are LYING about the car?

I just know nonsense when I see it. 8 wheels and a base price of $255,000 Although given the current political leadership, I would figure that might be the new entry level vehicle.

The 'green' future is one where we all live in huts and are allowed to gather berries for survival in very limited areas while the wealthy elite live with the benefit of technology.

What is the ordinary end to a pilot program grows into an evil plot to stop the electric car.... :)

Now if it wasn't for the regulatory, tax, and liability environments the EV-1's might not have had to be shreadded. That is if GM wasn't concerned about one being reverse engineered.

People loved their Chrysler Turbine cars too, but government regulations and taxes made it so that chrysler had to destroy them at the end of the program.

Done the right way the chrysler turbine car program could be made into a 'detroit is hiding technology' documentary.

Nearly every car made for show, pilot, or prototype is destroyed. Very few survive. The reason so many GM show cars still exist is because a wrecking yard owner instead of crushing them as GM ordered, hid them.

Ford, short on Mustangs back in 1965 sold some of the pilot run cars. But, that was in a different age. Even then, they were EXPORTED. (

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