Now before you start drooling these electric cars can currently be purchased in Europe and hopefully one day a broad spectrum of electric cars will be sold in the USA.
Even "Beautiful beaches and a perfect climate are not enough for the citizens of the South Pacific islands of Fiji. Apparently, they desire cars that are quiet and don't emit pollution as well. If the Korean electric vehicle maker, CT and T, gets its way, that desire will be fulfilled."
A very interesting looking car is the Opel Flextreme and the upcoming Volt will be badged as a Chevrolet or an Opel across "the pond has been decided. The first Euro-bound EV's from the General will be Opels, though we are not sure how much in common the vehicle will share with the Flextreme concept."
In an amusing statement Rick Wagoner, head of General Motors, at a recent conference in Dallas, Texas in response to why GM didn't begin offering hybrid cars earlier is because nobody wanted them. So next time you wonder why the American auto industry is doing poorly look no further then their upper management. Kudos' to Toyota on the foresight to build hybrid cars earlier. In frustration Hank and Joe built their own electric car rather then waiting on the big automakers. While these guys have actually made a working product there are no end of retarded gas saving devices for sale on the Internet that will not save any gas at all.
Last but not least BMW is planning sell 500 electric Minis coming to California.
2 comments:
Amusing that MacGeek would think that there was demand for hybrid cars in the past. Perhaps he missed it when Honda cancelled 3 hybrid models for lack of interest and even Toyota ditched two of them for the same reason. Looks to me like Wagoner speaks the truth and MacGeek has a very selective memory about the popularity of hybrids. Non plug-in hybrids, like battery-only electrics, are oxymorons - impractical , overly expensivecars that have no meaningful advantage over plug-ins in their ability to either avoid gasoline or emissions. Only the simple minded think that a battery-only car has any significant advantage over a 40 mile ranged plug-in like the Chevy Volt. Take the Mitsubishi 100 mile range with its $20,000 battery that lasts all of five years - it costs the same as the Volt, which can take you anywhere at any time, look good doing so and get you there with some speed and with a battery pack that will last over ten years. And it will easily avoid over 94% of gasoline - in fact it can use ethanol, which is far cleaner than the coal-generated electricity
used by the Mitsubishi. Anyone still dumb enough to want a
"can't-do" Mitsubishi electric?
Well I don't know "anonymous" it's clear that the ball was dropped by the american auto industry. There has never been lack of demand for a reasonably priced hybrid car to my memory. Oh I think the Chevy Volt looks cool but it and others are vaporware until they start selling them. Im all for any solution that works well however at this time ethanol is a poor choice as its more expensive to make then oil if you remove the government incentives. Last time I checked they were using corn and while it works there are better sources. "Placing greater emphasis on land efficiency—that is, maximizing energy yield per acre—will be essential to making the best use of ethanol. Though corn has broad political support as a feedstock in the United States, it is one of the least efficient sources of ethanol. For example, ethanol yields per acre for French sugar beets and Brazilian sugarcane are roughly double those for American corn. Also important is the amount of energy used to produce ethanol. Growing, transporting, and distilling corn to make a gallon of ethanol uses almost as much energy as is contained in the ethanol itself. Sugar beets are a better source, producing nearly two units of energy for every unit used in production. Sugarcane, though, is by far the most efficient of the current feedstocks—yielding eight times as much energy as is needed to produce the ethanol. Given their positive energy balances and higher yields, it makes more sense to produce ethanol from sugar crops than from grains." Just some things to think about. : )
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