Originally posted by buddhasystem
Originally posted by jam321
I think electrical cars is a great idea. I am not saying anything negative about that. All I am saying is that we have to have the infrastructure to
support the change.
Hello there,
it just occurred to me that most people would recharge their cars at night (for obvious reasons), when the demand is the lowest anyway because the
A/C doesn't run as much as during the say and mosst of the lights are out. So in fact, this evens out the consumption and makes it more economical,
-- maybe we already have enough capacity on the grid to accomodate electric vehicles.
That's actually very BAD news. Think about this - if the nations energy grid is already taxed the way it is (peak usage during the day/reduced usage
at night) imagine what happens when that proportion increases to peak usage during the day/peak usage at night.
I had also heard that it takes more oil to produce the electricity needed to power that car than it does to make the gasoline for a conventional
engine - but hang tight with that, I'm still looking for data to back that up.
Then there's the question of the batteries. What do you do with them when they are exhausted? Can they be recycled? They are acid-batteries so you
certainly cannot dump them into a landfill. Has sufficient research been done to figure out what's going to be done with several million retiring
acid-batteries each year?
From what I understand now, most people that drive a gas-electric hybrid are leasing the vehicle because the battery has a life of only 8 years and
then costs between $7,000 - $10,000 to replace. With a lease, you can keep getting a new car every few years and let the auto companies foot the bill
for the battery. But how long is this going to last when the auto makers figure out just how much money they are losing on these batteries?
Already Chrysler, GM and Ford have announced that they will no longer lease cars
(
www.newser.com...). How long do you think it will be before the foreign car makers
follow suit? And what will happen when American consumers are forced to buy their cars? Will they buy a vehicle that they know they will have to sink
an extra $7,000 into 7-8 years down the road? I doubt it! I predict they will move back to buying traditional 4 cylinder gas engines that get between
30 and 40 MPG.
So has Obama really done his homework? Has he even considered all of this when he talks about pulling the trigger on gas-electric hybrid spending? I
seriously doubt it, because honestly I believe the man isn't that intelligent about this subject without his advisors (I refer you back to the
"inflate your tires, tune your engines" speech). But it's something he had better do his research on before this idea of his becomes a huge
taxpayer subsidized money-pit.
