Originally posted by ebe51
Electric Cars....
A good concept but many technological challenges to overcome. Batteries have the exact opposite problem of hydrogen they are efficient however they
takes up allot of space and they're heavy. Which means there weight is added to cars making it harder for motors to push the car down the road. The
best electric cars are stuck about 100 miles between recharges, and again that the best ones.
Sorry, but you are quite mistaken.
First of all, yes the lithium-ion batteries used in the newest electric cars are indeed heavy, but in comparison to the weight of an internal
combustion engine, etc., there's no argument there. Space is definitely not an issue either, since the only motion-generating component aside from
the batteries and tires is the moving-part-free electric motor.
As for the mileage range, you again are entirely wrong. For example, the Tesla Roadster, which is currently in production, can go up to 220 miles per
charge. That certainly transcends the corporate disinfo that electric cars are only efficient enough to be neighborhood vehicles. Below is a link to
Tesla Motor's site:
www.teslamotors.com...
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Some others had the honor, but I would like to also reiterate the relatively green nature of electric cars. It has been said in this thread that
electric cars are not "zero-emission" because the pollution output of power plants needs to be considered. This is true, but the efficiency of even
the seemingly dirtiest power plants is significantly better than that of an internal combustion engine. On top of that, if one wants to purchase
carbon offset credits from their power companies to cover the small footprint of their car's energy consumption, they are very cheap. Even further,
one could produce their own electricity with solar panels or wind generators, which are quickly becoming more and more viable financially for
everyone.
New Solar Panels Produced at Less Than $1 Per Watt (Treehugger)
Amazon Selling 400 Watt Wind Turbine For $800 (Treehugger) (it's actually on
sale for $500 right now)
[edit on 12-3-2008 by iceofspades]
