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My buddy Mayor sent me this paleolithic (in internet terms) clip of Jay Leno hooning it up in a Tesla Roadster. Production model #1, owned by RSA-born Elon Musk of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors, in fact. And it looks like a lot of fun (the car). Sure, Leno glad hands the Tesla suit a bit (like when the guy says it "only" takes 3.5 hours to charge), but the car itself looks pretty damn drool-worthy. 100% torque at any time, at any speed– what's not to love? Now, of course I'm skipping over the part about Tesla Roadsters not– you know– actually existing. And if they did, costing $100k. But let's ignore all that. As "car guys" (and gals), should the opportunity arrive for you to drive electric, would you? I'm a fence sitter.
54 Comments on “Question of the Day: Would You Drive Electric?...”
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Only if it involved Hydrogen.
Sure, I would drive it, if the opportunity arrived. Would I buy one, especially considering their cost, lack of duribility data and being one of the first generations of these types of cars? Not only would I say, no, but OH HELL NO!!!
Only if it’s a Toyota.
I would.. if they don’t have an economy one in 2 years when i get home from Iraq i’ll build one out of a Gremlin. If they would stop trying to make them replace the gas cars of today and just accept their limited range use they would be little problems
Absolutely! But, it has to make financial “cents”.
I believe there is or will be a market for a 50 to 70 miles per charge EV. That would be more than enough to be my daily driver.
But it has to be at least as good a car as the Fit/Yaris type vehicle.
No. I’m a chemical engineer by trade, and it just doesn’t make sense. You can’t make a battery that will charge quickly enough, and hydrogen fuel cells are impractical for personal vehicles and/or longer distances.
We need liquid fuels, we just need better ways of producing them. The technology exists to make alcohols from pretty much any carbon source (even CO2), it’s just a matter of cost and where you get the energy from (preferably non-fossil fuel).
If someone could prove to me the economic and environmental benefits (I still have doubts those exist) and it was cheap, I suppose I would.
BTW, I was just listening to This Week In Tech and it sounds like Jason Calacanis has received his. He claims it’s faster than his Corvette and he still wants to put solar panels on his house.
If an electric car satisfied my needs (200 mile range, acceptable passenger and cabin space, cost, reliability durability) then yes. I would even be willing to compromise on a few things. Perhaps an electric car can be used as my commuter car, with a smaller range and cargo capacity.
Absolutely. One of our two cars only needs a very short range. Electricity here is mostly from hydro power, and cheap. Just waiting for something that makes sense. I believe it will arrive within five years (Subaru re1, etc.). I’m not buying a new car until I see what EV’s are viable then.
If a practical, affordable, and attractive electric vehicle is ever marketed, I’ll be interested. I think such a vehicle will exist someday, but it’s still a ways off.
I’d love to take a Tesla for a spin if I could get my hands on one and if they existed, but I’d have no interest in owning one. I think the vehicles of the not-too-imminent future will make the Tesla look like a Ford Model A competing with an Accord.
Didn’t you hear? Tesla claims to have delivered car #3 to an actual paying customer (who doesn’t work for Tesla). Car #2 is still in Europe getting some stuff done to it before it goes to that other Tesla guy.
I figured TTAC would be all over that.
Yes either electric or plug in series hybrid as a commuter, grocery getter.
On a 36 month lease under warranty for the entire lease term with no downside for batteries, controllers, and other issues.
Sure.
A 50-70 mile range two-seat EV would be suitable for at least 2/3 of our trips. Either my wife or I could get back and forth to work three times with a 50-mile range. Plug in every day and the thing will always be “fuelled” to commute and do a side trip or two.
What I won’t do is pay more for that than I would for a Yaris or maybe a stripped Corolla. I’m willing to make some compromises but I’m not just going to throw money at an EV for the sake of driving an EV. To some extent, an EV competes with every other vehicle on the road and, especially, with a Prius, which is a fully capable car that uses very little gas for a very reasonable price.
We’d still keep a conventional car for long trips but we have three cars as it is; one could certainly be a limited-range EV.
If it had a 200 mile range with the A/C on, was larger than a Yaris, and under $20,000, then yes, I woulb buy one.
Absolutely, YES!!!
I spent a good number of years working on the U of Michigan Solar Car project, and we did a lot of testing sans-body. The chassis + electric drivetrain would smoke any gas car we had running chase. Granted, our cars when maxed out on mass only weighed 650lbs with driver, but they only had a 20hp (max) motor that was only putting out 2hp cruising at 55mph. :-)
If it made financial sense, sure, why not.
I could easily switch to an electric car for one of my family vehicles. But we are probably the only family with 3 kids in America outside of NYC that only drives 14,000 miles a year total, with 2 cars.
Whether an EV would make sense from a monetary perspective (would I pay a multi-thousand dollar penalty to go green when I am already pretty green, mileage-wise?), or from a greenhouse gas perspective (most of the electricity here in GA comes from good ol’ fashin Amurrican coal), is another story.
i drive electric already [when i go to a golf course that doesn’t allow walking…]…
seriously: YES, but as others have stated, it needs to make sense.
In terms of TOTAL environmental impact (cradle to grave), I imagine that the tesla would be close to even steven with an elise…
I’m sure that this will be improved with time…
As a commuter I’d drive a hybrid gas/electric. Cost would be a big factor. I would not pay a premium just to be greener than thou. If I could get a hybrid for about 20-25K with a 5 year warranty I’d spring for one. I commute about 60 miles a day and a big radio means more to me than a big engine, especially at $4 a gallon.
I’d drive a Tesla if it were given to me. Hopefully they’ll actually go into production, be seen on the road and start to dispel the myth that all electric vehicles are basically golf-carts for the road.
However, I’d still have to have my gas-engined vehicle. There is just something special about the sound of a hi-revving v8.
I prefer the sounds of internal combustion. Electric cars are like tofu to a steak connoisseur.
I’d happily lease one on reasonable terms from a major OEM as my city car.
After 5-6 years of proven reliability I’d be happy to purchase one.
Would I want one as my ONLY car, heck no. As the local runabout it would be awesome, it could cover most commuting and errands.
A professional acquaintance of mine has used the EV Ford Ranger for ~5 years now as his daily driver. He loves it and it has not given him any trouble. He also has a Solar Electric and Micro-Hydro System so he makes his own fuel.
While the up front costs of Solar are steep, combining a system with a reliable EV allows you to “own” almost all the costs of driving rather than “rent” it from the oil industry.
Since the odds of an electric car being produced that has the performance, handling, comfort and long distance range of my 300C are so low at this point I’m going to have to vote no.
Gas will have to get a lot higher for me to give up my 340hp V8. Sure I have to stop and add some more gas every now and then but at least after a few minutes and about $50 later I can get back on the road, something that can’t currently be done with electrics.
“Never say never” of course, but the final decision will obviously depend on what limitation are imposed by electric vehicles (recharge time, cost, environmental safety, range…)
My present circumstances would make an electric car feasible with the technology that exists, with the exception that the common parking area in my condo doesn’t have any outlets. Oh well.
I would drive an electric, except mashing on the go pedal of an V8 with 430+ HP is like heroin…I can’t stop. Good thing I don’t drive much…
I’m surprised at how many are voting ‘yes’.
I think we should ask a bit more from our cars; if someone told you they would sell you a tiny, short-range, expensive car that takes HOURS to refuel, I bet more would say no. I know, they are getting better, but right now I can’t see it.
I say again: we need liquid (not necessarily fossil) fuels. They offer convenience, range, infrastructure, and more than a century of development already done. Why waste such a highly refined energy source (electricity) on propulsion?
Yes I would for my commuting/in town car, as I only drive 25 miles per day on average. I plan to build my own as I’ve never bought a new car, but I believe there will be a niche market to start for people like me who only need something for commuting and have another car for longer trips.
I would like to reduce my dependence on fossil fuels, but then we already drive fuel efficient cars, not gas-guzzling SUV’s or V8’s.
Driving a golf cart like a maniac is fun as hell. Other than that, I’d stick to IC as long as possible.
Only if it makes financial and environmental sense, the performance is acceptable, and it is safe.
Questions I would ask would be:
How much fossil fuel will it take to charge the battery? Will that be less than a hybrid would use?
What will be the life of the battery and what about recycling issues?
What safety features will be in place in the event of a fire or an accident?
What will be the range?
Can it haul my family (currently 4 members) and our luggage on a trip?
What will it cost?
Will it work when it’s really cold or really hot?
Can pedestrians hear it? (A Prius got very close to me and my son the other day in parking lot. I couldn’t hear it and was VERY pissed that the owner would do that. Of course, I let him know that he should at least play his Yanni CD loud enough so that I could hear him coming…)
Yes.
No, not yet, under any circumstances. Electromagnetic radiation alone would keep me out of them.
Remember electric blankets? (Turn ’em off before you get into bed.)
Remember overhead power lines that cause cows to abort? Or cause your radio to go dead as you drive under them?
Cell phones you shouldn’t hold too close to your brain?
There’s a lot to yet be found out about submitting yourself to driving around in a steel box full of radiation.
I guess I will be going against the rest of the comments but I’m in the ‘NO’ camp, at least for right now. Maybe in a decade I will eat my words but I like the ICE too much to go electric, plus I like having gears to shift. I’m sure eventually electric cars will be on par with the mainstream cars of the day as far as comfort, convenience, drivability, range and hopefully price, but until then I’ll stick with fossil fuels.
It would be cool if they could eliminate the need for very heavy batteries by powering the cars from the street level. Range would become a non-issue, cars would be lighter and cheaper to make.
quasimondo: I prefer the sounds of internal combustion. Electric cars are like tofu to a steak connoisseur.
That and the feel of ICE. It has character that electric lacks. I love ICE–I guess that’s my vice–and I love the tofu analogy for electric. Having said that, if the cost, the range, and the refueling time on the electric weren’t that much different from ICE, and the cost of fuel was $6/gal vs $3/gal-equivalent, or thereabouts, it wouild start to be tempting.
Probably not. Even if an electric car provided the same functionality as my current vehicle at an identical cost, I like the sound/feel of driving an ICE.
Until legislation removes personal choice I’m going to drive what I like.
Only if the electricity source is a Mr. Fusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_capacitor
-ted
I would… as long as a few criteria were met. Such as; it was full size, it had nice styling (i.e. absolutely nothing like a Pri__us, Camry, or econo box), had LOTS of torque (400 ftlbs or more), any traction nannys were optional, had a range of at least 300 miles, priced no more than a gas vehicle, cost less to maintain than a gas vehicle, and had the crash worthiness of at least a Yukon. Yeah, I could live with that.
If it could do 70 mph for one hour, have reasonable AC/Heat at comparable operating cost yes. I would even probably prefer it for everyday use versus ICE. But my love for driving would likely still come from occasional weekend jaunts in an ICE powered sports car.
I am considering putting together an EV motorcycle to see what it is like. That and to have a cheap sporting vehicle for the road. If I like it well enough, may go for a conversion of a car after that.
Yep. Sure would. But it’d probably be a conversion I made myself, as I don’t see any new factory-made models coming out in the near future that I would spend the big bucks on.
I don’t see any turn-key factory made electrics worth owning right now for under $20K, most are actually in the $30K to 50K range and up. I expect the situation to change when electrics are mass-manufactured and economies of scale kick in, but not for the next 5 years or more. For now, an electric is for all intents and purposes a custom made car and priced accordingly.
My initial research says that a usable conversion can be done for between $8K and 10K U.S.; of course, I would discount my own time and effort to construct it.
With an electric in my stable, I would still prefer to keep 1 or 2 gas-powered vehicles around for hauling big stuff and taking long trips out of town. But for 90% of my driving, an electric with a 50 to 60 mile range and big enough for 2 adults and 4 bags of groceries would more than cover my needs.
If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on electrics as the city/commuter car of the future.
Phil, if you drive around in an IC car, you ARE driving around in a car filled with electromagnetic radiation. In fact, the only way to avoid any at all is to go down a mine, I think.
I’m amazed that you are worried about an electric car. I have a Prius which is a very very short range electric car with an onboard charger… I’m on my second one. My radio works fine in the Prius. Unlike my home radio if it is held close to the microwave oven in the kitchen.
See the point? Electricity in the homes and in our cars – including my and every other hybrid electric car – could not possibly be dangerous or nobody would build them. Consider how litigous our society is.
Just remember – don’t stand too close to the microwave in your kitchen when it’s on. And replace the microwave every 2-3 years whether you think you need to or not. They’re cheap.
And our last microwave, which was only about 5 years old, and appeared totally fine, burned my arm. I was wearing a medical alert bracelet for allergies and the microwave leaked radiation. “Ouch” was an understatement.
Yes, I would drive and own electric car and hope to before I retire in a decade and a half.
My provisions are: $25,000 cost or less (in today’s currency value equivalence of course); ability to use the vehicle in any Michigan weather condition; at least 80% savings over gasoline fuel costs for running costs; at least room for two and a Newfoundland dog in comfort.
I’d LOVE an Aptera electric if and when they ever produce it and sell it where I live.
But sadly, history is littered with corpses of companies trying to bring innovation to the automobile. I hope Aptera succeeds.
Studebaker (first front caliper disc brakes in the US), Rambler (first average priced car with dual circuit brakes, likewise E-coat body rustproofing, first car with seat belts in 1950)
Tucker (3rd headlight steered to help you see around corners, safety cage, pop-out windshield)
Reo (first car with self-shifter “automatic” transmission in our post-modern lingo – 1934-1936)
I listened to Jason Calacanis on the TWiT podcast (#141) this weekend raving about his spin with his new Telsa Roadster. He said that he wants to buy a second one as a backup to drive while the other stays home and charges.
He also claims that the solar panels that he is installing at his home and office will be able to charge this Telsas.
He said that it drives better and faster than his Corvette.
He has a lot more money than the average Joe. So good one him I guess. He claims to have been driving it for two days now. So perhaps Telsa was finally born?
Yes, in fact I’ve been weighing on the possibility of buying a Vectra scooter.
Like a lot of folks here, I can’t justify the buying proposition on an economic basis. But I do like the idea of supporting the American economy and telling the bigoted dictators of the world to go fly a kite.
Even if it were a few hundred gallons, it would be well worth it.
I would defintely buy an electric car. They have no maintence, have 100% torque at zero speed (Green can be fun to), and run silent and clean.
The challange is to make the electricity from green sources.
EEStor in Texas has a solid state ceramic battery or ultracapacitor in production for delivery this year to ZENN motors in Canada. It has 16KWh of energy in a 100lb package with a 5 minute charge time and unlimited recharge cycles. Even Lion batteries will be obsolete almost over night.
Before the end of this decade we will all be driving them!!!
Yes. Especially once I move next year and my commute is on back roads instead of the interstate. All I need is a 75 mile range to have a comfortable margin. And I know my company would let me plug in for free during the day. I am keeping an eye out for the upcoming Nissan EV.
Then I’ll use my gas savings to buy an older 911 for weekend fun.
Heck, I was seriously considering a Corbin Sparrow at one point (when it was $13,000); ’till Corbin gave up and sold it to Meyers Motors (>$20k now). But the short (30-mile) range and the fact that it’s gawd-awful ugly means that only an EV fetishist would consider it.
What any EV seller has to offer is the ability to instantly (and inexpensively) access a larger vehicle (full-size sedan or pickup truck) as the customer’s needs dictate; possibly through agreements with car rental companies.
Edit: Yes!
Yes absolutely. Perhaps not any current electric cars, but I know the technology will improve as does all technology. I imagine that soon there will be very attractive electric alternatives to combustion engine cars.
I would certainly buy a Tesla Roadster if:
(1) I could normally afford a new $100,000 car (i.e. a new Mercedes S500, Porsche 911, etc).
(2) It had a good ride as well as handling (I’m not sure about this)
(3) It could regularly get at least 150 miles per charge (this seems to be controversial at the moment).
Can I get it in a manual?
See, I want to drive my car, something that wasn’t really a part of my last golf cart experience. If driving feel could somehow be added back in when the IC engine is removed I’d be more for it.
I’m pretty meh about going green, but I like driving.
Reading the comments above, it’s obvious there are a lot of people that still see the GM EV-1 as state of the art, but that technology is 10 years out of date. Not only can several of today’s batteries be charged in less that 10 minutes, but their cycle life is vastly improved as well– the Altair NanoSafe battery, for instance, has sustained 30,000 charge cycles (the equivalent of decades of daily use) and there is still no sign of how long it will last– it can only be described as indefinite in life, similar to other electronic components such as transistors, capacitors and resistors.
With gasoline already topping $4. a gallon here in California, and analysts saying it may double in price again within 18 months, electricity– which does not use foreign oil and can be generated from a number of clean sources, including home solar panels– typically costs a tenth as much as gasoline to power a vehicle, and the price differental will widen greatly as times goes on.
Electric vehicles typically have a range with today’s technology of between 100 and 200 miles, and many people see that as a problem, but they are not fully thinking through. Every driver today wastes many hours a year standing next to their cars, waiting for their gas tanks to fill, breathing hazardous fumes– electric vehicles typically are charged at home… you pull up, connect a charger– a two-second procedure– and disconnect it again when you get ready to leave. No time lost at gas stations.
Two large companies are investing major bucks in special charging stations that will be able to quickly charge our cars when we are driving longer distances, such as cross-country, or if for any reason we need to charge up while we’re running around town. Remember, we will need no where as many of these stations as we would need of gasoline stations, since gasoline cars MUST be filled from gas stations, but EVs will be charged at home most of the time, where it is more convenient and cheaper.
Critics like to suggest that if we start to use lots of EVs, that it will put a huge burden on our electric grid– but the exact opposite is true. Google V2G, or Vehicle to Grid… electric vehicles that are not being used can actually level the load of energy used in metropolises. Also, companies such as Nanosolar, with their new, vastly superior and cheaper flexible PowerSheet solar panels will start to install their products on 100,000 homes each year, dramatically reducing our need for the grid, and dramatically reducing the cost of driving. It will also decentralize our power needs to a great degree, so that many homeowners will instead be selling their non-pollutiing energy to the utility companies, who will redirect it to sell to businesses.
EVs do not need oil changes, oil filters, air filters, muffler replacements, expensive transmission work (EVs do not need any transmission at all, not even a reverse gear), they use regenerative braking that makes their brakes last much longer than today’s cars, they can have as little as one moving part in the entire drive train for a full-sized vehicle, and they require far less maintenance… and NO smog tests ever.
A recent study showed that if you live within 500 feet of a freeway, your health suffers as a result… and the closer you live, the more pronounced that health impairment is. When electric vehicles such as the Phoenix Motorcar SUV and the Tesla sports car take up more of the traffic on our streets, you’ll notice subtle differences: less noise, fewer people in emergency rooms for asthma, gasoline prices will drop because of decreased demand, our cost of living will drop dramatically since electric vehicle use will have a ripple effect in our economy. What gasoline we buy will be supplied domestically rather than from Saudi Arabia and Iran, so they will not be able to afford to finance terrorism as they do now.
Shifting from gasoline to electricity to power our cars will require no where near as much adjustment as many people expect. It will be easy, comfortable and painless for most people, unless you work in a gas station, transmission shop, smog test center, parts supply house or similar business that relies on gasoline vehicles.
One more thing– those of us that follow developments in the EV industry are scratching our heads at Tesla Motors, who stubbornly use older, more problematical batteries for their vehicles. The kinds of batteries that Phoenix uses can be rapidly charged when needed, they are not susceptible to fires and explosions, and they will last for decades… why they insist on using thousands of laptop batteries is unknown, but it’s unfortunate. It makes the electric car industry look less viable than it really is.
EVs will change our lives for the better, and sooner rather than later.
Or let’s look at it like this.
A Tesla currently costs $ 0.02 per mile to operate, per their web site.
A car getting 20mpg at $3.50 per gallon costs $ 0.175 per mile.
If we drive 25,000 miles per year, that would cost $500 on the Tesla and $4,375 on the 20mpg car.
That savings, over 10 years, is $38,750 or about 40% of the price of the Tesla.
If you compare that to a Porsche 911, then, a Tesla is significantly cheaper to operate right now, without even having to assume $4/gallon gas for a long period.
Finally, personally I really like the turbine whine noise the Tesla makes a lot better than the internal combution growls and grumbles. Maybe I’m just new-fashioned :-).
D
Hey, I thought of something that could bring back the ICE sound in an electric car that Jay wanted to hear so badly. How about a kind of muffler that affects the sound of the air that passes through it as you go down the street. Kind of a muffler in reverse.
The air goes in through some kind of scoop, it travels through some chambers that create/play with the pressure waves, and voila! instant brrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR sound!
I’m no physicist or fluid dynamicist, but is that kind of thing possible starting with taking in air, but no or little sound?
B-Rad, I read his stuff a bit more closely and it looks like Elon Musk has simply loaned him P1.
I wonder who has P3. I’ve heard scattered rumors that it’s been shipped to a customer, but nothing solid and no information about the customer. I was hoping it was Jason, but apparently not since the car being demonstrated is clearly Elon’s.
D
David,
Oh, OK. I didn’t actually read any of Jason’s stuff, just heard him talking about it on TWIT. And he didn’t say anything about the Tesla he was driving being a loaner, IIRC. But then, when you’re that rich, have a big ego, and you’re constantly having people criticize you because you spent $100K on a car that still doesn’t exist, would you mention it was just a loaner?
He did mention in one of the videos that it was, and it definitely looked like Elon’s car. So I think we can reasonably conclude that his car has not yet arrived.
I don’t know why someone would criticize a guy for buying a Tesla. If I were rich, I probably would have bought one myself. Remember, for many of these people $100,000 is equivalent in percentage of income terms to what a good dinner might be to you or I, and if the Tesla fails, it’s not like they have no way back home – their Mercedes S-Class or Porsche 911 is still there.
D
sean362880: you say electric cars cannot be charged fast enough, and somehow want to use your background in chemistry to give you greater credibility, but Phoenix Motorcars with the Altair NanoSafe battery can be recharged in less than 10 minutes, which is certainly fast enough to have drivers abandoning gas guzzlers en masse.
You cannot assume that just because an EV cannot perform as well as a gasoline car in every respect that it cannot compete. There is still much room for improvement in battery technology, and improvements will come: although batteries have been around for well over 100 years, nanotechnology is in its infancy, and has already been responsible for enormous strides not only for batteries but for supercapacitors and other energy storage systems as well.
You are doing no one any favors by trying to use your educational background to convince others that EVs will not progress any further than they have so far.
Gasoline power is much more of a dead end than batteries ever could be: with millions of Indians, Chinese and others suddenly competing for the same rapidly dwindling oil resources; even if EVs somehow do not satisfy your idea of what a vehicle should be, you have to start looking at alternatives, since gasoline will disappear much faster than OPEC is willing to admit, and unless everyone is ready to start pedaling bicycles, there must be a replacement.
The way OPEC is set up is a kind of insane honor system: each country says how much oil they supposedly have in reserve, and how much oil they claim to have determines what percentage of oil they’re allowed to sell at any given time. Since there is no system of verification of claims, there is no incentive for member nations to be truthful, and there is plenty of reason to believe that they are all members of an international Liars’ Club. Suddenly and soon, we’ll start seeing the beginning of the end of cheap, easily accessed oil; what oil will be left will be of lower quality, will be more expensive to get to, and will be in smaller quantities.
Even if that were not the case, it’s insane to assume that we will not suffer irreparable environmental and health damage with increased use of fossil fuels to power our cars– we need to develop alternatives and must do it quickly.
Gasoline in California is already straddling $4. a gallon… regular is just under that price, premium a few cents over… it continues to increase an average of about a penny per day, and the rest of the nation is just weeks behind price-wise.
You cannot be quite so smug about just what is acceptable or not about the performance of EVs: if, tomorrow, you drive down the street and every gas station is selling gasoline at, say, $10 a gallon, or worse, if you start seeing lines of dozens of cars lined up waiting for gasoline, what you will find acceptable will change quickly. ($10 a gallon may sound inconceivable, but I’m sure 2 years ago, $4./gallon seemed inconceivable to you as well.)
Even if EVs somehow hit a brick wall today and ceased to improve their performance envelope, they are already quite practical.
Take the Phoenix Motorcar, which is made in California. There will only be a few hundred made this year, almost all of which will be sold to utility companies such as Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Gas Company, and there will only be about 6,000 or so made in the coming year, but their production will ramp up dramatically, other companies will be building similar vehicles, and they are typical of what we can expect in the near term.
The Phoenix only has one moving part– like a hair dryer, electric drill, table fan or kitchen blender– they need no transmission (not even a reverse gear), no pistons, valves, cams, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, smog pumps, timing chains, etc… all of those moving parts eat away at the efficiency of the car… from oil field to gasoline delivery truck to tailpipe, there is only perhaps a percent or two of the power delivered to the drive shaft.
By comparison, a Phoenix needs no delivery truck for its fuel; its one moving part spins very efficiently on its own center of gravity; it’s quiet, needs no oil changes, air filters, tune-ups, smog checks, transmission service, etc… it will run year after year virtually without service; its batteries will last for decades without need for replacement; and its electricity currently only costs about 2 or 3 cents per mile, and is unlikely to ever cost much more than that– in fact, with the new, high-efficiency, flexible, inexpensive solar panels from Nanosolar that will be installed on 100,000 homes per year or more, people will be able to power their cars virtually for free.
For now, EVs need to be recharged every 100 miles or so… but so what? This would not be an issue for 95% of the travelng most people do– to work, the market, school, and back home where it only takes a couple of seconds to plug in the car, and unplug it again when it’s time to leave– that is certainly far more convenient than spending dozens of hours per year gassing up, getting tune-ups, smog tests, etc. Watch: you’ll be seeing charging stations popping up in unusual places, such as Costco, Starbuck’s, Target, etc., so that you’re multi-tasking effortlessly and very inexpensively.
The batteries, motors, controllers and other parts needed to make EVs are far from as cheap as they will become when economies of scale kick in: EVs will probably be significantly cheaper than gasoline cars within just 5 years or so, they will have far better performance, and are likely to increase in range between charges significantly.
Do not dismiss EVs flippantly: trust me, there is one in your future much sooner than you realize, and when you do have it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t get one much sooner.
Gotta go now… I’m converting one of my BMWs to an EV… I have to pick up the metal I’ll be using to fabricate the mounting brackets for the electric motor, and then will be picking up something called a Hall sensor, which is what you use in lieu of a gas pedal in an electric car… yeah, I’m excited. I should have it running by the end of the month.