[Vision2020] who killed the electric car?
g. crabtree
jampot at adelphia.net
Mon Feb 5 18:57:09 PST 2007
Why does your beloved electric car have to come off the drawing board of the "gas/auto industry? If the technology was economically viable and if a significant number of people were anxious to purchase a glorified slot car I would think that it would be brought about by other means. ("hundreds of customers" begging the companies is hardly a significant market.) Who is it that would not "allow" them to do this? If experience teaches us nothing else about corporations, it's that in all but a few exceptional cases, returning value to the stock holders is what makes industry sing and dance. If there was any real money to be had with electric cars I'm sure that some capitalistic eager beaver would be on the dime and doing it. (with the help of greedy investors) Of course for some, the "paranoid fantasy" has a more romantic allure than the grim reality, yes?
g
P.S. Vampires working out of a little dive bar in Mexico are gearing up to suck a whole gaggle of North Americans blood right down to the last drop. "I saw it on DVD." Stock in turtlenecks is bound to go through the roof.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill London
To: Paul Rumelhart ; vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] who killed the electric car?
Yes, engineers likely could design more efficient vehicles and better power sources -- but will they be allowed to do so?
That is the lesson of the electric car fiasco in California.
When the gas/auto industries were able to destroy the state mandate for zero emission cars, they stopped their engineers from improving the existing electric cars, stopped their customers from buying any (or transferrring their leases to purchases), and destroyed all existing vehicles.
BL
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Rumelhart
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] who killed the electric car?
As a programmer, I can't help but look at the issue of "shifting pollution somewhere else" in terms of reusable programming code. It's analogous to moving logic from many different functions into a central library of code. If that central library of code is written badly, then you don't get any benefit right away and might even see your program slow down. However, refactoring one function can now help in many different places immediately.
This is also true for the electric car. Yes, it shifts the burden from efficient gasoline engines to inefficient coal-powered plants and inefficient electric engines and batteries. However, replace one of those coal plants with a modern nuclear reactor or a solar or wind farm, and you've just helped the whole equation measurably with just one change.
We're going from a known bad in multiple places (gasoline-powered personal vehicles) to a known bad in a much smaller list of central places. This can only help in the future. I'm also optimistic that the scientists and engineers will design more efficient electric cars and power-containment technology as the demand increases.
Paul
Ted Moffett wrote:
All-
I'm not defending the oil/auto industry in these comments regarding how they have approached electric vehicles, but electric battery powered cars/light trucks are not realistically a large scale solution to US transportation needs at the current time, if they ever will be.
The electric car can lessen pollution in vehicle dense urban areas, but to a large degree would shift the pollution generated by the electrical generation to power the cars, somewhere else. The US derives about 50% of its electricity from coal fired plants, linked to creating respiratory ailments and exacerbating respiratory disease, along with dumping dangerous mercury pollution and massive amounts of CO2. If the US shifted to far more electric/battery car use, the electrical power demands to charge these vehicles would force more output from coal fired electrical generation plants, thus more pollution, given current coal fired plants pollution control technology. The US now in some areas already faces rolling blackouts during peak electricity use periods due to demand exceeding safe system capacity.
Hopefully, given that the US has the largest coal reserves of any nation on Earth, and the almost impossible to stop demands for incredible amounts of cheap (coal electricity is cheap) energy to run our economy and technology, future coal fired plants can reduce all forms of pollution, including CO2 output, via CO2 sequestration technology. Then electric cars charged via coal derived energy might truly be "non-polluting," and not contribute to global warming.
Electric cars/trucks to be a realistic long term solution need to be recharged off sustainable (coal will deplete) non-polluting energy: solar, wind, nuclear fission (I know this suggestion will raise eye brows), the dream of practical nuclear fusion, etc. There is not now even a fraction of the generating capacity from these sources to power a mostly electric nation wide fleet of cars/light trucks, that most consumers drive.
Of course, we hear often about fuel cell vehicles, a kind of electric car, that does not require charging batteries to power the cars motor, given that the fuel cell generates the electricity on board, but there are still serious problems with what fuel source can economically power a nationwide fleet of fuel cells vehicles. We hear a lot about hydrogen to power fuel cells, or even to power an internal combustion engine directly, but this fuel takes a lot of energy to produce in the first place, like in electrolysis from water. Fuel cells can run on fossil or possibly some biofuels, but fossil fuels will deplete, and biofuels are very questionable as a large scale solution to energy demands for a number of reasons.
It is easy to forget the incredible amounts of convenient portable inexpensive energy contained in the gasoline/diesel powering cars and trucks, and tempting to think that there are practical and affordable options to this form of energy, if if were not for the sinister manipulations of the oil and auto industry and the short term greed of Wall Street. I don't deny they are sinister, and have manipulated to stop or slow the implementation of alternative energy solutions to the fossil fuel powered car/light truck that most people drive, or to block more reliance on public transport to reduce the need for most all to drive cars and trucks. But there are serious technological and economic problems with replacing fossil fueled vehicles, given our current short term profit oriented economy, lifestyle and huge consumption of energy.
Here is an interesting and apparently well informed discussion on electrical energy generation and the problems with fossil fuel depletion and global warming. I will offer one quote that bodes well for wind energy to power electric cars:
http://www.ieer.org/latest/ourelectricfuture.html
"There is no shortage of energy sources that have no or low CO2 emissions. The potential for wind-generated electricity in the 12 states down the spine of the United States (North Dakota to Texas, including Midwestern and Rocky Mountain states) is equal to two-and-a-half times the entire electricity generation of the United States.
Put another way, the energy potential there is roughly the same as the oil output of all the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)."
-------------------
Ted Moffett
On 2/5/07, Ellen Roskovich <gussie443 at hotmail.com> wrote:
I definately recommend viewing this documentary. I saw it downtown when it played here a few months back. For some reason it, the documentary, seems to be getting as much attention as the electric car did. Too bad. But now that it's out on DVD maybe more people will see it. . . . I know I told all my friends about it after I saw the movie. Now I'll tell them to go get the DVD. Glad Bill brought the subject up.
Ellen Roskovich
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Kai Eiselein, editor" <editor at lataheagle.com>
To: "Bill London" < london at moscow.com>, < vision2020 at moscow.com>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] who killed the electric car?
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 10:38:50 -0800
NPR had a segment on this last summer. as well.
-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]On Behalf Of Bill London
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:29 AM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] who killed the electric car?
A decade ago, California decided to get serious about smog and required car manufacturers to create zero-emission cars. The auto makers did build electric cars for sale in that state. Then by creatively undermining public support for the cars and reversing the state mandate, they killed the electric car. Literally. Even though hundreds of customers begged the companies to sell them an electric car, the auto makers refused (the cars were only leased, not sold). And then the leases were ended, and the cars were actually crushed and recycled.
Though it sounds like a paranoid fantasy, it's all there in the recent documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I saw it on DVD. It is a great summary and a strong indictment of the short-sighted oil/auto industry that could only see that big cars equal big profits.
GM and Ford are now suffering big time with diving stock prices and huge losses. And all I can think is those dinosaurs deserve it.
For more info, and links to the DVD, etc see: http://www.pluginamerica.com/
BL
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