<p>I wanted to buy a Prius today, but the dealer I use said they can’t get any for a couple of weeks, and they won’t be discounted. (I hate to pay retail). I think it is something about $4 a gallon gas that is causing this. :)</p>
<p>My wife owns a Prius and loves the car. </p>
<p>I am on the Chevy Volt e-mailing list. </p>
<p>Now I may just buy a Ford Focus. Can’t decide.</p>
<p>A friend of mine works for a government agency, deals with hydrogen cars and says hydrogen powered cars aren’t going to be consumer ready for several years.</p>
<p>^ $4000 premium on a Prius (heard some dealers are starting to mark-up the Prius due to demand) can buy a lot of gas.</p>
<p>Don’t get a Focus…it’s a POS. Go for something that is fuel efficient and actually holds its value - consider a regular Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla.</p>
<p>
Sure, but where are you going to get the H2 in an environmentally friendly manner that’s not energy intensive?</p>
<p>^ Too energy intensive…I bet it would take thousands/millions of acres of photocells to generate enough electricity on the scale that would be needed (talk about pollution - visual polution)…it’s not economically or technologically feasible to scale up, yet.</p>
<p>Where do you get the water? Desalination of ocean water? What about inland? Drinking water aquifers? What do you do in a drought? Can we divert clear water from drinking and irrigation uses to fuel our cars as well?</p>
<p>What do you do in areas that don’t get much sunshine? </p>
<p>Nuclear energy is the only scalable option at this point in time.</p>
<p>The thing about hydrogen is that while people talk about it like it’s a fuel source, it’s not. It’s just another intermediary. The energy still has to come from somewhere, and one has to prove that the efficiency is higher for hydrogen than, for example, for electricity - and then deal with the kind of questions UCBChemEGrad posted.</p>
<p>The automakers are very motivated to discourage interest in electric cars, in part because they need so little repair and the lucrative “auto parts” sector of the business would be endangered. But electric cars time has come and we need to keep the drumbeat of demand going…</p>
<p>And range is not a problem for the vast majority of regular auto use. We have a Toyota Rav4 electric car (one of a limited number that they did not recall from leases and crush) and it has been virtually maintenance free, charges overnight plugged in in the garage, and goes 113 miles on a charge.</p>
<p>So unless you have to drive more than 50 miles to work or more than 100 miles in a given day, it is a wonderful everyday vehicle. Our second car is an uneconomical but capacious Honda minivan and it does duty when we need more distance</p>
<p>Hydrogen cars are just electric cars with a different type of “battery.” Although it’s one of the most abundant elements in the universe (in space) there are virtually no harvestable sources of hydrogen here on earth. Like helium, it’s too light to exist in our atmosphere… it just floats out into space. And unlike helium there aren’t really any deposits in the ground. The only way to get it is to make it and that’s usually by the electrolysis of water… a process that requires huge amounts of energy. </p>
<p>Therefore, so far as energy goes hydrogen is NOT an energy source… just a means of temporarily storing energy generated elsewhere for later use… so in essence just a battery. Therefore it’s really no better than electric and may, in some cases, be even less efficient than electric cars. It may have a future, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.</p>
<p>Before any of these alternative technologies (most of which use electricity in one form or another) will ever have any meaningful impact we need to re-organize the way we generate electricity. </p>
<p>Nuclear, despite the stigmas, is one of the best ways we have all things considered. </p>
<p>Hydroelectric can be OK, but sometimes at the cost of destroying existing waterways and ecosystems. </p>
<p>Solar is also excellent, but quite underdeveloped at the moment… we should eventually cover large sections of our deserts with solar cells. </p>
<p>Biofuels are a load of nonsense at the moment, but will have a significant resurgence and meaningful impact once advancements in enzyme technology allow the production of ethanol from cellulose material thus allowing waste plant material (rather than food crops) to be used.</p>
<p>“Don’t get a Focus…it’s a POS. Go for something that is fuel efficient and actually holds its value - consider a regular Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla.”</p>
<p>I’m sorry to read that the Focus is a POS. </p>
<p>A Honda Civic or a Corolla, I don’t know. With gas at $4 a gallon…I guess they are cheaper than a Prius to own because they are cheaper to buy…but not much. </p>
<p>Maybe I would save $200-$400 a year over a 10 year period.</p>
<p>“Nuclear, despite the stigmas, is one of the best ways we have all things considered.”</p>
<p>I was as anti-nuclear as anyone in the 70’s and 80’s, but I’ve come full circle, now thinking it’s the only viable long-term solution (carbon, greenhouse, etc.). But we must solve the long-term waste problem, and I think we can if we attack it as a JFK “man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade” problem.</p>
<p>Then we use the nuclear-generated electricity to split water and have hydrogen as our main portable fuel for most transportation modes.</p>
<p>Yes, battery powered cars have limited range (and will continue to do so with foreseeable battery technologies) which is a valid technical issue. But that range is more than adequate for 90% of urban/suburban car owner’s needs. Recharging overnight at home is easy and also adequate for most of most people’s needs as well. Current technology makes 100 to 150 mile range readily attainable; as most households are multi-car now, having one of those cars be electric with a maximum range of even just 30 to 50 miles would make sense. But that’s still a limiting factor. After you drive 150 miles, it will take a while to “fill up” again. So gas has its place. But should that “place” involve 100% of our travel? Electric cars are not a panacea, but they make sense as a part of the solution to the nation’s overall transportation needs. </p>
<p>As to the power plant/pollution issues, one of the beneficial factors is the fact that electric cars typically charge overnight, when electric usage from other demands is down. A lot of overnight charging could be accommodated without any expansion of the existing power supply infrastructure. And the total pollution generated by centralized power plants is significantly less than than generated from on-board gas engines, on a per-mile-traveled basis. Large scale power generators are much cleaner and more efficient than small gas engines. Even coal-fired power plants are cleaner than auto engines.
A few points:
Care to back that claim up with a cite to any major auto manufacturer selling (or leasing) an electric car and not having a waiting list of buyers, despite zero sales effort and zero financial incentives? Or any other proof other than the fact that you’ve been told that over and over? Because I’ve looked for any evidence to support that claim and found nothing - not a shred. What I have found is long lists of people trying to buy electric cars - then and now - and not having the opportunity. Hard to square that with “no consumer interest”. </p>
<p>As to recycling/disposal of batteries - that depends on the battery technology. Old fashioned lead/acid batteries (ooh - lead! Sulphuric acid! Icky!) are actually very good in that area; lead is easily recyclable and in fact the level of recycling of lead batteries is already quite high. But lead acid batteries are limited in their power storage capabilities. Other battery chemistries? Still too soon to tell. The current craze is Lithium phosphate - LiFeS04 - how that will work out for recycling I don’t know. NiCad was big for a while, but cadmium has issues, it’s true.</p>
<p>The thing is, there has been (and still is) a market for battery powered electric vehicles. As to why t hasn’t been tapped? I don’t know.</p>
<p>At this point in time, if Detroit sells its first electric car and that car is a dog, it will harm the electric car movement significantly. Detroit knows that and that is part of the reason for the delays in what is growing movement towards electic vehicles. </p>
<p>The other problem is the battery. The technology simply has not yet advanced to the point that a car can have a battery that holds enough of a charge to last long enough not to stress easliy stressed American drivers.</p>
<p>As far as the Big 3 automakers go, they’ve been making too much money on SUVs to support electric and other fuel-efficient vehicle technologies. A prime example is the rise and fall of the ultra-fuel-efficient Supercar:</p>
<p>Having a limited use vehicle is OK for those who make enough to buy a second car for longer trips but it’s a big investment for such limted use for many people. It will need big subsidies for many users.</p>
<p>Everything is based on the volume and lifecycle prices. The production of electricity is not a monolithic industry, and it’s easy to confuse the baseload production and the non-baseload production. </p>
<p>There are no perfect technologies and our biggest handicap has been to pursue the Holy Grail … energy sources to cheap to meter. This was the motto for nuclear energy and we know that the cost of decomissioning a nuclear plant might be ten times mores than its cost. Also, is there anyone who would decide to live within the potential danger range of nuclear power plant … by choice. </p>
<p>With the right controls and full cost analysis, nuclear energy presents opportunities but it is not the panacea some purport it to be. Any more than clean coal is. Only through “intelligent” accounting, especially at the government level, is it cost competitive. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, the proposal is pretty simple: energy costs MORE than we are prepared to pay. By hiding the true costs and forcing alternative energy producers to compete with “fake” numbers, we have delayed the introduction of large scale solutions based on renewable energy. </p>
<p>The cheapest source of energy is that one we do NOT consume, and that is why energy conservation and efficiency are so important. In the past --and the present-- we love to focus on getting CHEAPER sources so we can consume more of it. Fwiw, we can see how the impact of non-balancing our demands and supplies of fossil (and non-renewable) fuels is hitting our wallets. </p>
<p>We will ONLY learn when the “conventional” sources are becoming so expensive that we have no other choice than seek solutions based on remewable energy AND energy efficiency with unabated determination. </p>
<p>Part of the solution will require forcing consumers to PAY penalties for insisting to use “conventional” sources. This will never be a popular message in a country that lives to consume everything in excess and wants it to be the cheapest possible. </p>
<p>Take your utilities bills of January 2007 and triple the cost charged … this will give you an idea of what is to come.</p>
<p>In some ways the high cost of oil at the moment is actually a good thing. When gas was cheaper than bottled watter nobody was willing to consider making the expensive investments necessary to explore alternative technologies. Now, once expensive technologies look cheaper and cheaper every day.</p>
<p>People always say they’re “green” but at the end of the day most people will only think about alternative technologies when dirty technology hits them where it hurts… in the wallet. </p>
<p>People complaining about $4 gasoline really have no clue… before long $4 will be considered the good old days. $10 a gallon is not far away… I was in Europe this spring and prices are already at those levels in some parts there (partially due to higher tax, but most due to lack of the gov’t oil subsidies we have in the US).</p>
<p>I was fascinated by the news that Americans are curtailing their car use these days in response to high gas prices. while there are many for whom commuting is essential (such as my S who has a 40 mile round-trip every day), many seem to have not cared about how much gas they consumed until now. One person was quoted as no longer taking several trips to the city per day, but combining several errands into one; another made the same comment about curtailing trips to the mall, or errands per day.
It seems that for folks such as these, the high price of gas is forcing a more rational use of their car and their time. I wonder how much of a reduction in car use and gas consumption can be effected without actually affecting individuals’ standard of living or even requiring the purchase of different types of car</p>