What happens when you are on a trip and need a charge? Do you pull into a recharging station and wait hours for a charge? Is basic household current enough or do you need to increase current coming into your house? I'm going to need a lot of answers before ever considering an electric car.

You mention two very good points.

I was upgraded to a Nissan Altima Hybid when renting a car a few months back.

One of the most disturbing things to me was the quiet when it was running on electric. It seemed rather dangerous to be in a car other vehicles and pedestrians could not hear. Loud pipes save lives.;-)

Second downside was that it only runs on electric power at speeds under 40MPH. 99.9 percent of my driving is done under higher speeds than the 35 MPH my Hybrid was set to. So the only benefit was fuel savings at idle for me.

Third I am not comfortable with the approximately 275 volts of electricity running through the system as opposed to the regular 12 volts of a normal vehicle. Seems like the possibility electrical malfunctions could happen during an accident that could cause injury to the occupants or rescue personnel.

So for me the Hybrid didn't seem all that much of an upgrade. It was fun to try out and drive but I wouldn't buy one.

the economist had an excellent piece on on your first question. basically they found that if England instead of subsidizing the costs of electric cars to consumers instead spent the $$ on converting off coal powered electric they would lower their carbon print by something like 80%. where as if they continue to subsidize electric cars the effect is a 2% reduction in carbon emissions. of course JUST try converting coal addicts...you'd have better luck converting people off oil lol

myself i'm on the fence. i was willing to put a deposit down on the sports car Volt wayyy back when they were first taking $$ today's model is nothing like it, AKA to my ultra-hip young friends who equate it to a grandma's malibu :-0 Bugatti, Jaguar, Porsche all have new electric models w/ new super expensive tech that debuted at the Paris Auto Show a few weeks ago. there is potential in those products since some are hybrids and capable of winning over those of us who love our power vehicles. it will take yrs before the Jaguars 700 hp engine technology comes in under $75,000 ~ liz

My neighbor purchased an electric car for the live-in help to drive....for short errands.

Batteries can be recycled. The electricity is our town is produced from coal, but exhausts only steam into the environment.

I'm a big supporter of anything that might help the environment...:0)

I was wondering much the same, the PUC has just removed the cap from the electric companies here and we are expecting some hefty increases, is that like an increase on a barrel of crude? Environmentalists here are driving hybrids and battling the building of anymore wind turbines...from where will the electricity come to drive the cars?

Last year I put a deposit on a Tesla for my boss....he can expect delivery sometime in 2012, hope they figure it out by then!

I looked at a hybrid when I bought my CRV back in February. It had four batteries. We asked what would happen when they can't be recharged anymore, and were told we'd have to buy new ones at a (now-a-days) cost of $2500 per battery. Um, that's $10,000!!! And they couldn't give an estimate of the lifetime of the batteries. At least three years, they said. That's not long enough!

I think I will stick with my old pickup truck. Wonderful ideas for some of these glassy eyed utopians, but how do they pan out in real life? And not everyone lives somewhere that you can just putt putt around town.

We have a family across town that bought one. She is a nurse and would drive it back and forth to work. It caught fire during the night and burnt the garage down. Lucky for the family that they all got out without injury.

lynn_d -- You know, I'd probably buy a Tesla just for the NAME! LOL

stoneybaloney -- Thanks for the info on the battery life. Three years? See, that's just what I was wondering about. Our little Jaguar X-Type is five years old. Only 18K miles, but FIVE YEARS, and the extended warranty runs out next month. Hasn't cost us anything in repairs or service. These electric car batteries sound like the spent fuel from nuclear reactors -- nobody knows what to do with the waste product.

nicole -- Do you know how much of the batteries can be recycled? WHERE is that done? China? Third world? (Talk about pollution!)

liz -- Do I want to know where you'd drive that 700 hp Jaguar? LOL (BTW, aren't you our former Chicago gal? Did you remember to vote twice today? I did!)

We bought a 2006 Honda ivic Hybrid this year. It was supposed to get 49 MPG, we are only getting 35. It seems weird when the engine shuts off at red lights. That's the "auto-stop" feature. Tho I do like the car. Don't do a lot of driving these days. Both DH and I are retired.

chisue...........yes, the entire battery can be recycled...in Ohio. A place called Toxco.

Personally, I don't live a lifestyle where I can drive an electric car. :0) But I'd like to think the USA won't be oil dependant forever.

marilyn's point about not putt putting around town is THE biggest obstacle facing electric cars. well other than our future oil supply has recently been found to be significantly less, than wasteful americans thought LOL (lack of deep oil reserves in alaska) but price fixes that. electric car researchers focus almost exclusively on close driving because most people spend most of the driving time within a certain radius of work/home. there is little market need, for people who drive further but infrequently so they are not going to waste $$ producing cars that can do that when say 5% of the population does that, atleast not right now. the latest luxury cars out, granted none are under $100,000 (a few over $1 mil), have made significant advances in batteries (lithium), how efficient single charges are and most importantly modifications to engines to allow more efficient use of battery power. Jaguars 700hp is an incredible advancement since there are not even street legal regular cars capable of that right now. porsche has had electric LeManns race cars in races for almost a yr now, that speaks to their charge longevity obviously.

electric cars are not the sole answer but as i mentioned about the oil reserves or lack of, we have to find something else and start perfecting & refining it soon before we do actually run out of oil. electric cars have just become more mainstream but it takes literally yrs and yrs of research to get to this point, it's going to take many more before we can not make a better product. the city of orlando has invested in quite a few fleet electric & hydrogen powered cars. there are charging stations all over downtown and in many parking garages.

BTW susie53 about 50,000 Ford 150's caught fire and burned to the ground (along w/ many a garage &/house) during a 5 yr period before a recall was issued. a single situation should not deter someone lol. heck 50,000 ford 150's don't stop 10's of thousands this yr from buying them :-) ~ liz

If its driving radius per charge is 100 miles ... that may apply in south in winter, north in summer and middle states ... spring and fall.

In the south and middle states in summer, radius will be much reduced, as motors are energy hogs, especially when under load as in air conditioners.

In middle and northern states in winter, and Canada in winter, radius will be reduced, as we'll insist on heaters ... and heaters are energy hogs, also.

And that's not just hot air!

Not pleasant, hitch-hikking for the rest of the journey in summer/winter, when power indicator hits red line due to energy consumption by air conditioner/heater, do you figure?

ole joyful

LOL chisue!!! i started my post walked away, came back and missed yours'...i sure did say to clients yesterday that i voted early and would vote today too..."it's the chicago way, early and often" ;-)))

actually i found the jaguar interesting because they have completely changed what is traditionally thought of as an engine inorder to achieve that insane amount of hp. the very fact that 700 hp ELECTRIC engine can even be achieved in a lab let alone in a real 'in use' model car is a huge leap in change. i believe that car is $2.5 mil, i don't think i'd feel comfortable test driving something that expensive, it could be wiped out in an instant in a accident LOL. maybe a test run around a track thou ;-))

honestly yrs ago i thought the idea of an electric car was silly. many yrs ago my uncle bought Prius's for himself, his wife and all 4 kids because they so believe in environmental issues. i did some research into them and educated myself on what was becoming a trend. drove his, rode in it, got used to the idea. it has grown on me, especially since we are sooo dependent on other countries for most of our oil supply which i think is like being a crack addict needing a dealer. i find new technologies so fascinating and especially when old thinking, like a traditional engine, is thrown out and something completely new brings about a huge shift or advancement.

i have owned a Cadillac 5.7L V-8 w/ 325hp i LOVED it but i did not need it. i then got a Grand Cherokee i felt safe in. i downsized in 2009 to an Escape suv because i wanted to do the right thing via gas mileage. my next suv is probably going to be an Audi super diesel in a couple yrs, that tech is very interesting too. i like that there are companies looking to satisfy a 'driving feel' for power and actually do translate that to real power. it's not needed for regular cars but certainly for much heavier commercial vehicles which is where they are going to take it. plus the idea that ultra luxury makers have focused on electric says there is a future in it and most models are sold out for 2011 on pre-sales already, the $$ is there, we just need the product. the lithium battery tech alone could lead to alot of other applications outside of cars. ~ liz

The all electric car will not decrease our dependence on foreign oil, or for that matter, domestic oil. BTUs (British Thermal Units) burned per mile may be greater that a gasoline fuled car. If you start at the power plant and compute system efficency, it is not very good. fuel is burnt in the plant to generate electricity. The conversion of energy to electric power in the best plants do not exceed 36%. Some car engines are approaching this efficiency. The power is tranformed to very high voltage for cross country tranmission, and then stepped down to local distrubution voltages, and finally stepped down again just before feeding a house. I don't have all the numbers for these transmission losses, but if you believe one ad, it runs to near 50% loss. I think its in the neighborhood of 20% to 30% loss.

And now, the energy arrives at the battery. (There are losses within the home plus charging equipment. Let's say we have a relly efficient charger on the order of 92% and the line losses is 1%. This works out to a 91% efficiency.) There is a big loss in charging a battery and another loss when the battery discharges. This can be as great ss 50% loss overall, but let's be generaous and say it is only a 25% loss.

The setimated overall efficiency between burning fuel in the power plant to energy used to urge the car down the road is 0.36 x 0.70 x 0.91 x 0.75 or 17%. In other words, 17% of the energy burned in a power plant is utlized to pushing the electric car down the road. (It's actualy less than this. I was generous with some of the estimates.) I can't see how this reduces energy consumpion per mile! All the elctric car has done is to transfer its energy comsumption to the power plant and the delivery system is not efficient.

This is why I believe that the hybrid car presents the better solution. Overall, it is much more efficient than an all-electric car when you compare BTUs burned per mile, and it retains some of the advantages of the gasoline or diesel engined autos.

Baker Electric made eletric autos ca 1920 - 1920s and these flopped. Since that time, huge advancements have been made in electical - electronic controls, but the basic battery chemistry and thermodynamics have changed little, so it is still an uphill battle.

Electric vehicles do have and will have their place in urban life in the future; It won't be a direct replacement for the personal automobile as we know it today.

I've been really intrigued by Better Place, a company that's trying to develop the infrastructure for battery-operated cars. They build swapping stations, where you pull into a Better Place station just like you'd pull into a gas station, and a robotic attendant swaps out your battery for a fresh one in less than a minute. They are also developing large networks of charge spots near offices and public areas.

They're already doing this in places around the world, and San Francisco just contracted with them for the support for a fleet of battery-operated taxis. A lot of their recharging is done with renewable resources like wind and sun, but I don't know what percentage.

Here is a link that might be useful: Better Place in San Francisco

I'm so glad I asked! As usual, KT-er's have a lot of wonderful information and ideas.

jemdandy -- Your calculations prove exactly what I suspected! (DH remembers two 'maiden ladies' who used to drive their electric car in his hometown parades.)

Does anyone know of experiments using wind power to help propel a car? (Guess the Geico little piggie with his pinwheels made me wonder about that.) Too much drag? If you were going 60 MPH, you'd be generating your own 'wind'.

School district had to sell the electric bus they bought with a grant. (They are more expensive.) It could not handle the hilly terrain here and ran out of battery power too quickly as a result.

Sheila Joyce,

How about getting two buses, with a rope between them, so that one going downhill ...

... can pull the second one, going uphill??

ole joyful

It sounds good, and I will buy one....IF....it is the last car on earth. I read an article about them and the writer said you may not save any money in the long run, may even cost your more.

I don't think they'd work here in Calif.They are always telling us to cut back on our electric use,or we may have to go to brown outs.

Then there is the fire season and so many people have to leave.and sometimes lose their homes,so where are they all gonna plug them in?? No thanks,i'll stick with gas.
JMO
Kathi

Totally impractical, IMHO .