Smithsonian Kills the Electric Car

well, this SUV drove more than 100 miles through the desert - without a driver. A driverless vehicle is not a dinosaur but indeed a technolgy of the future. Also, a sturdy SUV is actually a good choice in cases where you have a very bad driver (the computer) and many miles of dirt tracks ...

(I still think that there should be space for both cars ..)

Who killed the electric car?
All of the people who didn't buy one! It's not reasonable to expect GM to continue losing money indefinately. Besides, the electric car is not dead, one maker, GM, quit making them. The market place is wide open for someone else to sell them. It's not like trying to reestablish public tranportation after it was dismantled. Who killed public transportation? All the people who quit using it!

There is an ev-1 still on display at the crawford auto museum in Clevland:

http://www.wrhs.org/crawford/template.asp?id=99

Economic factors certainly play a role, but ideological factors and vision are also important.

If Toyota had stopped investing in hybrids in the mid 90s because gas was cheap, the early cars were too pricey and they expected low volumes, they'd never have gotten anywhere. All new techs start out as low volume and expensive. If you stop at that point, of course you'll never get anywhere.

As for GM, they are losing money on many of their regular cars, so it's not like losing money is such an aberration for them. I'm sure that right now they wish they had kept pushing and developing the technology, at least as a way to regain some credibility and have something ready in a few years when demand increases.

MGR,

The Prius is a good seller. The GM EV was a sales dud.
GM simply quit making this car. It doesn't mean they can't reenter this market at some future date. They didn't throw away the technology. As a matter of fact, they have more experience with electric vehicles than anyone. I have a feeling that if it were still available it still wouldn't set sales records. Look at the Honda hybrid that was recently discontinued and the slow sales of the Ford Escape Hybrid.

I think before they ever start to manufacture electric cars again, they have to first create recyclable or disposable batteries. I bet some chemists at Harvard and MIT could develop plant based batteries in about a decade (they already are doing that with photovoltaic lenses). Because the biggest problem with hybrids and electric vehicles is that their batteries can't be disposed of safely, and having battery acid leak into the ground water totally defeats having the hybrid in the first place.

--
editor note: Batteries are already recycled. Please see this.

The makers of this movie seized upon a golden opportunity, riding on the coat tails of An Inconvenient Truth. I'm afraid they wouldn't find the truth to be very convenient. I call people like that, Econistas.
Feed the frenzy to blame someone else and not take any responsibility. Brilliant!

--
editor note: Are you suggesting that they were able to put together a movie fast enough to "ride the coat tails" of A.I.T., or that years ago they foresaw that an Al Gore slide presentation would be this popular and mediatized?

I find it odd that the Smithsonian doesn't give a valid reason for removing the EV1 from display.

They could certainly come up with better deception than laughably potesting their impartiality and lamely claiming "it wasn't supposed to be on display that long".

While I live in a city and use mass transit, my friends in the suburbs are very familiar with the EV1 since they leased them. It was a very popular car, early adopted by fellow environmentalists and headturning to the hoi polloi. To say that the cars were economically unfeasible is fallacious. The most promising seed will fail to grow if you remove its resources. And why did that happen? Oil.

SUV's are the automotive equivalent of crack. Like a White Knight for Detroit, they promised big margins, big aftermarket in costly maintenance and repairs, and great oil consumption. Only minor retooling of their production lines was necessary. Rather than addressing long standing problems in the American automotive industry, attacking 1) inefficiency, and 2) unreliability, they opted for a quick fix. They marketed the behemoths toward mothers as a safe haven for children, a rugged terrain vehicle for the testosterone crowd. Meanwhile, NHTSA buried reports on rollovers and the extremely high death rates of SUVs. Consumer Reports noted that fender benders in even 5mph collisions produced staggering repair bills relative to sedans.

How can a nation have the wool pulled over its collective eyes? Oil.

Like a drug dealer, samples are given cheaply. Dependency ensues. And this is a nation mainlining oil like no other.

In what other Democracy does oil have such far reaching ties to all corners of government. Policies are decided like a drug addled addict. Oil companies, the most profitable companies in America are 1) given billions of dollars of tax subsidies, 2) given billions of dollars worth of access to public land without proper licensing fees.

Senate debate is not about conservation, efficiency or civic policies that give long term benefit to the people. Talk is about more drilling. Talk is about ethanol, a fuel source that has a negative net-gain, requiring more oil to produce and transport than it is equivalent to. To add insult to injury, ethanol plants require millions of gallons of water to operate.
To further complicate things, agro-corporations are now receiving and lobbying for millions and millions of dollars more so they can produce this "alternative fuel".

What killed the EV? Economics plain and simple. David was crushed by Goliath.

Toyota also made an electric car and instead of crushing them, they auctioned them off to their leasees. According to a blog by peakoildebunked.com there is a few left on the road in California. Their owners love them.
J.C.,Sr.

It is all about supply and demand. Where there is no demand, it would be foolish to keep on supplying the product.

The museum itself is closing to the public after september for a major renovation. For all we know, the car will be back in 2008 when it reopens.

The Touareg autonomously completed 132 miles in the Mojave Desert. That kind of course calls for an SUV, no matter what. I think both vehicles are very special and both should be displayed, but give credit where credit is due.

http://www.grandchallenge.org/

I'm an electric car owner. Every time I go out, I'm mugged by people asking me about it, and wanting to know where they can get one. Lack of demand didn't kill the EV1. The car was difficult to get, it was never marketed, and GM never made enough of them to satisfy the thousands of people on waiting lists to get one.

George,

Before accusing the makers of the film of being opportunists you should do a little research on the car.

A few quick points:
1. It was not sold, only leased. When GM cancelled the program all cars were recalled without a buyout option.

2. It was only available in CA and AZ.

3. Every EV1 in the program was leased.

So, I am not sure that calling it a "sales dud" is accurate.
From what I have read no one is quite sure why the car was discontinued, thus the film.

I drove the Smithsonian's car here in San Diego from 1998 to 2000. Had GM not taken it back, I'd still be happily driving it. It belongs in my garage, not the Smithsonian's.

It's amazing how persistent the myth is that "no one wanted" EVs when GM leased every EV1 they made available, and despite a long waiting list, refused to make any more than about 1000.

The "no one wanted EVs" myth also doesn't explain why GM insisted on taking back and destroying cars from drivers perfectly willing to pay to continue driving them.

Stored-electric cars will never be the answer. The EV1 was very cool, but it's a dinosaur now.

Batteries are one technology that will never catch up to the demands of something like a car.

Fuel cells and clean alternative fuels are the real answer.

Most stored-electric cars get what, 30 miles of range? Hey, that's great to get me back and forth to work each day, but what am I going to do when I want to take a long weekend drive into the mountains? or to visit my mom 400 miles away? I'm not going to stop every 30 miles, and recharge for 8 hours.

besides, these simply displace pollution like every other electric scheme. The remove the pollution from the tail pipe and move it to the power plant.

Cars like this will forever be museum peices, because they don't make sense on so many different levels.

The internal combustion engine is a remarkable machine, and humans have 100 years of knowledge behind this technology. it doesn't HAVE to run on gasoline. And if it doesn't run on gasoline, it can be a clean form of locomotion and electrical generation.

Diesel engines running on petro-diesel are already cleaner than gasoline (especially with particulate filters installed) engines. And bio-diesel engines are even cleaner.

Even better, diesel engines don't even have to run on fuel oils. Ethanol (if better ways to manufacture it are conceived, which I have faith they will be), hydrogen gas, propane, natural gas, etc.

All clean fuels. And all can be used in fuel cells too.

We don't need a revolution in automobile technology. We need smarter evolutions.

We don't even need to give up oil, just reduce our dependancy and eliminate the use of gasoline.

Chs, you really should do your research before pontificating. The Gen 2 EV1 had 125 miles of range. That was considerably more than I drove in a typical day, so it didn't matter that it took several hours to recharge. I'd take several seconds to plug it in when I got home, and by morning it would be full. I also had a charger at work, but I didn't really need it.

If you drive hundreds of miles every single day, then this car wasn't for you. But for the 95+% of people who drive less than that, EVs are entirely practical.

What did I do when I went on a long trip? Usually I drove to the airport. If I needed to drive long distances, I'd go to the local car rental and get a more suitable vehicle, such as a SUV for desert camping. Made much more sense than driving one every day in San Diego traffic.

You should do an energy and pollution comparison between EVs, fuel cells and gasoline cars. Large power plants are considerably more efficient than car engines, and the electric grid is about 95% efficient. And they can take advantage of hydro, nuclear, solar, geothermal and wind power, none of which produce any CO2.

While EVs do move some pollution to the power plant, the amount per mile is vastly less than for gasoline. I did the numbers myself based on the California generation mix, which is considerably cleaner than the rest of the country. Depending on the pollutant, EVs were anywhere from 95% to 99+% cleaner than gasoline cars.

Fuel cells are far less energy efficient than battery EVs. A typical electrolyzer is about 70% efficient; a typical automotive fuel cell is only 50% efficient (even lead-acid batteries are 85-90% efficient). And who knows what it'll cost to build and operate the hydrogen distribution infrastructure.

And fuel cell vehicles don't even get more range than battery EVs. Hydrogen is notoriously bulky; the car demoed to President Bush in the movie only got 100 miles per tankful, less than the EV1 "dinosaur" you dismiss. Prototype EVs, made since the demise of the EV1 program, have been getting 300 miles per charge on lithium-ion batteries.

Battery EVs are not only practical, they're the only forseeable solution.

Very interesting comment, Phil. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Something that most people also forget is that coal power plants usually can't be turned off or slowed down much during the night, so a lot of power is wasted.

If people recharged electric cars at night, it would actually make them more efficient, at least until the grid is made cleaner.

"and the electric grid is about 95% efficient."

where did you get this figure, phil? i'm fairly certain you're not even in the ballpark. a LOT of energy is lost on it's way from the plant to your home.

to me, whether it's a laptop, a flashlight, an off-grid home, or an ev, batteries are always the achilles heel... a dinosaur technology that needs a lot of development.

one wonders what gm is afraid of what do u think??

MGR,

Coal and nuclear power plants are generally "base load" generators. That means their operating costs are low enough to operate at full power 24 hours/day to meet nighttime power demands; their power is *not* wasted.

Additional daytime demand is met by the more expensive plants, notably those fueled by natural gas. These plants, along with hydroelectric generators, can be more easily varied to meet demand while the base load plants continue to crank along at full power.

In some areas, "pumped storage" hydro plants can absorb excess nighttime generation and produce supplemental power during the day.

When electrical shortages occur, they are invariably the result of transmission, not generation limits. The grid is lightly loaded at night, and since nighttime generation uses the cheapest fuels, it's an ideal time to charge EVs.

Dug, here's a reference that says the average US electricity transmission and distribution loss in 1995 was 7.2%. This includes line and transformer losses.

http://climatetechnology.gov/library/2003/tech-options/tech-options-1-3-2.pdf

My slightly better figure of 5% came from a California-specific source; I'm sure the numbers do vary regionally depending on the distance and technology. They are also consistent with the rate tables from my local utility (SDG&E) which charges slightly less for power delivered at transmission and distribution voltages than at 120/240V because of the smaller losses on their side.

A lot of power is transmitted over very long distances in California as high voltage DC, which tends to be more efficient than AC.

Note that I'm only talking about *transmission* efficiency, not the conversion of fuel into electricity at the power plant. That process is much less efficient -- about 35% -- but is still much better than the same process in a car or truck engine.

Let's do a sanity check on my transmission loss figure.

The Intermountain link is one of two major HVDC transmission links in
California. It runs from northern Utah to Los Angeles, a distance of
785 km. (The other big HVDC link is the Pacific DC Intertie, which
runs from Oregon to LA).

I found the specs. It operates at +/-500 kVDC with a power rating of
1920 MW (roughly the output of both reactors at San Onofre). Each pole
consists of three parallel conductors with an individual resistance of
.0075 ohms per 1,000 ft. The resistance is therefore .0082 ohms per
km, or 6.44 ohms for the entire length, or 12.88 ohms for the round
trip. At full power, each conductor carries 1920 amps. The I^2*R
losses are therefore 1920^2 * 12.88 = 47.5 MW, or about 2.5%.

That's at full power; loss percentages decrease at lower power because
they're proportional to the square of the line current.

This doesn't include transformer or DC/AC conversion losses, but I think
it's sufficient to show that my 5% figure is in the ballpark considering that not all of the power consumed in California has to go this far.

I leased a Ford Th!nkCity electric car, and now I own an electric Toyota RAV4-EV. The myth that there was (and is) no demand for electric cars is automaker propaganda. People in California and Arizona had to be really determined sleuths to even find these cars, and often had to persist over months of obstacles from the car companies to lease them. Even so, every one of them found a home and thousands of people were on waiting lists.

I get 125 miles per charge in my RAV4-EV compact SUV, which is a great regional car. The two-seater Th!nk got me up to 50 miles per charge and was perfect for the city. The money I save from not buying gasoline makes it easy to rent a car when I need to drive a long distance. (Electricity is much cheaper.)

Don't kid yourselves that GM was a lone bad guy. All the major automakers demanded return of their leased EVs after their lawsuit decimated California's Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate, and all were destroying them. Yes, even Toyota was destroying its commercially-leased RAV4-EVs even while it sold a few individually-leased EVs and broadcast its "green" cred from the gasoline-dependent Prius. Drivers staged multiple street protests to stop the crushing. See www.pluginamerica.com or see the film.

Are plug-in cars the answer for everyone? Of course not. Look at it this way -- for most of my personal transportation, I ride my bike. Yet I know that not everyone can ride a bike. Does that mean no one should make and sell bicycles? Certainly not -- I want the option of a bicycle. I also want the option of a plug-in car.

As for emissions, even on today's 50%-coal U.S. grid, plug-in cars are cleaner than even the best hybrids. And as we add more wind and solar to the grid, plug-in cars get cleaner. Gasoline just gets dirtier. See an overview of all the emissions data that I put together while researching my upcoming book, Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that will Recharge America:
http://www.sherryboschert.com/FAQ.html

If batteries are the "Achilles heel" of anything that runs off of electricity (in this case cars as the topic is Electric Vehicles) then the same Achilles heel of any engine is its method of fuel storage. How often to motorists get stranded because they ran out of gasoline or diesel? ;)


At the same time, there are far more Achilles heels on an internal combustion engine than there are on a simple electic motor. Such as the alternator, the battery, the water pump, the oil pump, the fuel pump, the timing belt, the fluid levels like coolant water and oil, the radiator and its connecting hoses, and sometimes the fuel filter (if it gets especially clogged.) And then there's the possibility of getting water in the fuel tank when filling up somewhere that doesn't maintain their tanks. How can you "fill up" with "bad" electricity? ;)

As has been already stated, GM's EV was not marketed well, if at all. Why not? Even if you end up with a huge demand and waiting lists, at least you would have an idea of how much people wanted this kind of vehicle (and still do.) And I also would have made sure that the leasing amount was affordable. According to this film's website, they were leased at $400-500 per month. Well, that's twice what I'm able to pay. I don't make $60,000 or more annually. Market to the people (like me) that REALLY need this: the "hoi polloi" :)

Excellent!
Both Plug In America and Phil Karn have it right...
Here are some related links that are sure to provoke additional insight and thought to the issue. Too many folks out there afraid of losing $$$ on existing tech.

Darel's EV page.
http://www.darelldd.com/ev/

The EV1 Club:
http://ev1-club.power.net/

Hybrid Mileage Comes Up Short
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63413,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

wow i just can't believe the amount of misinformation about the EV1...its just too ramapnt to refute...did you think making stuff up wold make you look important

I always find it interesting to hear the nitpicking of electric cars, batteries, and quibbling over the efficiency of power plants and the electric grid... as if everything is peachy-keen with the internal-combustion engine, gasoline, and the geopolitics of importing most of our oil.

Noone ever asks why transporting liquid fuel is so energy and infrastructure intensive, why gasoline engines are so inefficient, and why the energy-density of liquid fuels remains depressingly constant. Noone reads up on the history of the internal-combustion engine or appreciates the long and hard struggle to make it as reliable, powerful, and (dismally) efficient as it is today.

Battery technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past few decades despite what conventional wisdom keeps shouting. Anyone remember cellphones from 15 years ago? They were called cell bricks for a reason ... running on nickel-cadmium or lead-acid rechargable batteries with a small fraction of the energy density that today's lithium-ion cells have. And the advances keep coming.

I'm not going to debate that economics (or perceptions thereof) killed the EV. The domestic automakers made a fortune for the better part of a decade off their low-investment "invention" if the SUV. Now, due to their failure to think long-term and accept changes to their business model, they are steadily they're losing market share to foreign competitors that plan ahead. "Fast follower" Toyota seems to be leading the race now, of all companies...

The fascinating thing about the EV1 is that it was a production vehicle ... limited-production, but produced in some quantity nonetheless. It wasn't the absolute first or the best ever, but it was the most efficient and highest-tech vehicle of its time and frustrating close to being attainable. In the grand scheme of things, I think that the EV1 is a more memorable and noteworthy accomplishment than a semi-autonomous vehicle.

All I know is that every time that head of GM is whining about his "costs" on the talk circuit, I think of how he trated the EV-1. It was a quantum leap in technlogy that was just tossed away.

I want my electric car, NOW!

First off, Phil what movie had a hydrogen fuel cell car demoed to President Bush?

Now as far as those Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars go, don't be so quick to turn away from them. By going to -

http://www.gm.com/company/onlygm/energy_cell.html

- you can see that the HydroGen 3 gets a 168 to 249 mile range(depending on liquid or compressed form)and, the Sequel gets a 300 mile range. Both of these having zero pollution, only emmission is clean H2O. And this technology is still improving so the ranges should keep going up.

Finally, as far as the Hrdrogen infrastruture goes, D.C. already has a Shell gas station selling Hydrogen, plus other private stations, and New York has at least one station up there somewhere. While yes it won't happen over night, and it will cost money, overall it will benefit the U.S. due to it making us less dependant to nondependant on foreign oil... not to mention that at the rate we are using crude oil, and coal up they won't be around much longer.

Greg, I was referring to the (a?) trailer for "Who Killed the Electric Car?" It includes the demo of hydrogen to Dubya.

I don't doubt that the ranges of hydrogen fuel cell cars can increase with further work. But so can the ranges of electric cars! EV prototypes using Li-ion batteries (which the EV1 never used) now get 300 miles.

The really funny (ironic) thing about hydrogen is that for three years I drove a working hydrogen-fueled car. The Gen 2 EV1 used NiMH batteries, which means it used hydrogen as its fuel, storing it as a metal hydride. Instead of being replaced from an external source, the hydrogen was regenerated when the car was recharged.

Presto, no need for a whole new infrastructure to distribute hydrogen. It took advantage of an existing efficient and ubiquitous energy distribution network, the electric power grid, that already comes to every home. Will hydrogen pumps also be available in every home? I think not.

Hydrogen, as a mobile energy carrier, is *far* less efficient than the power grid and even existing rechargeable battery technologies.

When rechargeable batteries were first developed for consumer use, they were rightly hailed as a great innovation. Instead of throwing away used batteries and going to the store to buy more, you could recharge them from the outlet in your own home. But now we're being told that it's better to go buy a physical, consumable fuel than to enjoy the convenience of batteries that can be recharged in our own homes. Why?

Yes you can recharge the EV cars from the convienence of your own home, but in most of the US that energy is either coming from crude oil or coal, which part of my point was that we can't depend on this source much longer because projections show they won't be around for much longer. yes we have nuclear energy, wind power, hydro power, geothermal power, etc but there are disadvantages to these.

It's been proven by scientists that Nuclear energy can not be used as our main source(I forget the exact reasoning, but I learned about it in an environmental science class)

Wind power takes up too much space which we obviously are running out of (world pop. projected to be 9.5 billion by 2050), and their vibrations are a problem.

Hydro power is limited to location, and when suitable locations are found, huge areas must be flooded, losing valuable real estate, destroying the environment, and displacing or worse killing wildlife.

And geothermal energy is also limited to location, and there is not "enough to go around".

DOW industries is already using Hydrogen Fuel Cells for energy down in Texas. Not sure how many fuel cells they have now but they plan on having a total of 400 which will create 35 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 25,000 of todays average sized homes.

Actually, very little US electricity comes from petroleum. According
to the DOE, in 2004 electric generation used 0.53 million barrels per
day out of a total consumption of 20.52 million barrels/day. That's
only 2.6% of our oil consumption.

Also in 2004, US electric generation used a total of 40.77 quadrillion
BTU. Only 1.28 quadrillion BTU (3.1%) was from oil.

Most oil, of course, goes to transportation (13.62 million
barrels/day, or 66.4%). That's the problem that EVs can solve.

Almost all of the coal mined in the US is used for electric
generation. At current consumption, we have centuries left. More than
we want to burn, though, because of global warming. We have to find
non-fossil alternatives.

Yes, pretty much all of the good US hydroelectric power opportunities
are already taken, but many of the other sources have considerable
promise. Solar is my personal favorite; rooftop solar is arguably the
most benign because it goes on existing buildings. PV economics are a
problem, but they are steadily improving in efficiency and decreasing
in cost. Just project the curves foward in time and it won't be long
until they become quite competitive. Wind uses land, but not
exclusively, and we have many untapped wind resources in the US.

That brings us to nuclear. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, nuclear
power is the worst way to generate electricity except for all the
others. Every form of electrical generation has disadvantages, but we
cannot afford to write off *any* method that does not use fossil fuels
or produce CO2. That includes nuclear. While I'm all in favor of
expanding development and deployment of wind and solar, the simple
fact is that nuclear is the only proven near-term option to generate
large amounts of electricity without generating greenhouse gases or
pollution. Three Mile Island notwithstanding, western reactor designs
have proven themselves very safe and reliable. Waste disposal is a
purely political and emotional problem; technically, it was solved
decades ago.

My point is that only the EV has the potential of getting
transportation off oil and onto a diverse range of energy sources that
produce no CO2 and no air pollution. There are many ways to produce
electricity, many more than there are to power internal combustion
engines.

Take a close look at those fuel cell projects. You may well find that
the hydrogen is produced from natural gas, a fossil fuel. That
consumes energy and produces CO2 as a byproduct. If you're going to start
with natural gas, you might as well burn it in a turbine. The
50-60% efficiency of modern combined-cycle gas turbines is actually better
than all the fuel cells I've seen. Remember, fuel cells are merely an energy conversion method; they are not an energy source.

Yes, there was a demand for the EV1 but was it ENOUGH of a demand for GM to continue?
GM didn't think so. Gas was cheap, near it's historic low when adjusted for inflation.
Here's a graph. http://oregonstate.edu/Dept/pol_sci/fac/sahr/gasol.htm
Did you know GM has partnered with DaimlerChrysler and BMW to produce a hybrid transmission? Here's a link.
http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=10933
Production starts in 2007. It will be used in large vehicles first, the most fuel consumptive vehicles, which makes sense. It is supposed to increase efficiency by at least 25%. Unlike other manufacturers designs towing is not restricted.

I guess I should have added that the new transmission in hundreds of thousands if not millions of vehicles has the potential of saving far more fuel than a few thousand or possibly tens of thousands of all electric vehicles. GM reallocated their technology budget to the vehicles that people actually buy. And...as I said before, GM has not thrown away the technology used in the EV1. When it becomes a viable business proposition they can be there.
By the way, the technology of the new transmission is an adaptation of a hybrid bus transmission developed by GM. It must be pretty good for DaimlerChrysler and BMW to sign on.

As for nuclear, there are other, more efficient reactor designs out there that solve the waste problem quite well. Look into the "Integral Fast Reactor" - it recycles all the long-halflife isotopes every time its fuel is reprocessed to separate out the true waste from the remaining fissionable material. The reactor design is much simpler that the existing light-water designs and inherently safe (if anything goes wrong such as loss of coolant or overheating, the reaction itself simply throttles back or shuts down without intervention). Centuries of fuel for this sort of reactor already exists in storage pools and radioactive waste dumps across the country.

There are also breeder reactors that generate their own supply of plutonium These are much more efficient than light-water reactors, but have some technical challenges - such as their use of liquid-metal coolant.

Phil, I have to disagree that nuclear waste disposal is only a political and emotional problem. Radioactive waste that lasts tens of thousands of years is a problem no matter how you store it.

And as for hydrogen -- Extracting hydrogen for use requires either natural gas or electricity. It takes 4 times as much electricity to run a hydrogen car the same distance as an electric car because you have to use electricity to make hydrogen to run what's essentially an electric car instead of using the electricity directly in the car. Hydrogen cars (with hydrogen made from electricity) actually produce more greenhouse gases than gasoline cars if you look at the complete picture, not just what comes out the tailpipe. Take a look at Joe Romm's book, The Hype about Hydrogen if you think it will ever make sense for cars.

Let's face it, there are down sides to every option. If we want to move quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on oil using existing technology and existing infrastructure, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids fit the bill.

Nuclear waste that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years is still better than chemical waste that remains toxic forever. And we produce a lot more of that.

Actually, that "tens of thousands of years" figure is
misleading. Remove the actinides (uranium, plutonium, etc) that can be used again in reactors and what's left will decay to the activity of the ore it came from in only a few hundred years. Most fission products have very short half lives and are gone even before the spent fuel leaves the reactor site. The most problematic isotopes in nuclear waste, cesium-137 and strontium-90, have half lives of 30 years.

The scientific evidence from the natural fission reactors in
Gabon shows that fission products are remarkably stable
geologically. Despite being just below the surface with ground water running through them, they hardly moved in a billion years. Surely we can do even better by converting them to insoluble forms and burying them much more deeply in dry geologic formations.

The fact is that we simply don't have a choice but to expand nuclear power. Hybrids may use less petroleum than regular cars, but they still use it far faster than nature is making it. Even if fossil fuels weren't in limited supply, global warming due to CO2 is shaping up to be a major environmental disaster. That's why the EV, powered by non-fossil energy sources, is our only workable long-term solution.

I'm all in favor of aggressive development of solar and wind power, but we can't bet the farm on them. Electricity is so fundamental to our way of life that we can't dismiss *any* method of generating it that doesn't use fossil fuels. The fact remains that nuclear is the only proven option for generating very large amounts of electricity economically and cleanly. The intractability of schemes for "sequestering" CO2 from coal-fired power plants just shows how much easier the nuclear waste
disposal problem really is.

In short, I favor nuclear power precisely because I'm an
environmentalist.

I just read a couple of interesting posts on another blog about Nuclear power:

http://www.biofuels.coop/windblog/?p=21

http://www.biofuels.coop/windblog/?p=22

Phil Karn,

I thought I'd send you a link about the viability of nuclear power.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/8/165835/4175
It's not viable. I was disappointed as I had thought that there was unlimited fissionable material but it's not true. My roommates father who is a nuclear physicist in China concurs. It's renewables or back to the caves.

George, I don't know where to begin with that article. It's simply ridiculous. For example, they're worried about the 4.5 billion-year half-life of U-238 in spent fuel. Where do they think that U-238 came from in the first place? From the earth! In fact, it's just about everywhere.

They also try to connect the use of fluorine in uranium enrichment with the halogenated gases that cause global warming. This is also completely ridiculous. Uranium hexafluoride is a *solid* at room temperature, and it doesn't even *melt* until 64.C.

As for their main argument that there's not enough uranium to last 6 years, that's just plain silly. Every single analysis I've ever seen (besides theirs) shows that there's enough known uranium to last hundreds of years with the inefficient reactors we have now, and *many* thousands with reprocessing, mining of less concentrated ores and/or breeder reactors. The reason breeder reactors have fallen out of favor is simple: they're unnecessary given the present world glut of uranium. Plutonium from decomissioned weapons is another excellent source of nuclear fuel that will keep us going for some time. I can't think of any better way to get rid of it.

Speaking of plutonium, it is simply wrong that civilan power reactors produce weapons-grade plutonium. They produce plutonium, yes, but it is contaminated with the heavier Pu isotopes that render it useless in weapons. It takes special "low burnup" reactors to produce weapons-grade Pu-239, while civilian reactors leave their fuel in as long as possible.

The claims about energy and CO2 balances for nuclear energy are also just silly. Every other analysis I've seen shows that the complete nuclear fuel cycle produces a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases of fossil fuels and consumes a tiny fraction of the energy it produces.

In sum, nuclear power won't last us forever, but it's by far the best option we have until we eventually transition to solar and/or fusion.

Here's an excellent set of pages on nuclear energy and its sustainability:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html

Well the problem with electrical has always been one of thermodynamics, its just not feasible to do it it, and the EV1 cars may have been good at using the current technology of the times, I can easily see that GM was running a marketing test with "double blinds" to validate feasibility (for whatever purpose).. when tests are finished, cars are removed from market (bottled water would have been laughed at in the 60's and 70's as an example mind you)

PLacing a vehicle that one a DARPA contract opportunity (besides the peanuts in money) is a valid point (although I think the vehicle is extremely childish in its design and implemetation and I'm sure many scientist at DARPA had a good laugh)

Removing the EV1 from view does not mean that later on it may be seen again (political winds change rather drastically in America and abroad)..

James, I can't understand you. Are you saying that the EV1 worked in practice but not in theory? After all, two of them seemed to work just fine for over 5 years when I drove them.

Very nice thread. Thanks for explaining to some, that hydrogen is not freely available, that it is actually pretty expensive to make it.
But EV or hydrogen - we still talk about commuting one or two people at the time mostly for distance of 25-30 miles. How come no one mentioned public transportation? I will be always more efficient to transport 20 or 30 people at once! And some buses already run on natural gas, trains run on electricity for decades. We just need reliable public transportation which would go further from cities. Oh, I can here already some of you complaining and naming reasons why it can't work. But just imagine reliable service, which would get you pretty close to your location. You may have to walk few hundred yards, but that is actually good for you :-). I don't see people walk anymore, even the shortest distance. We got lazy, so lazy! We get in the car in garage and get out of it at work or at shopping mall. And we believe that there isn't any other way.
Again, it wouldn't work for everyone, but if majority of us do it, there would be lot less cars on the streets.
It would require big changes but we the people are the ones who can demand them from our government. Or we may be forced to do them when gas hits 10-15 $/gallon...

Frankly, horse n buggy needs to come back in style. This was the ulitimate in renewable.

1. You feed the horse oats to run.
2. You put the horse droppings on the oats to grow more.
3. start back at 1.

Other benefits:
Epileptics, narcoleptics and drunks won't be quite the menace they are today.

Downside:
1. It is a slow mode of travel.
2. I don't think the postal service will give them up.

Seriously, I think the only way for things to change is for gas prices to get to $10+/gal. for a major revolt to get these viable, green, economical alternatives in the mainstream and out from under the clamps of those in power getting richer with each passing day. But when we get to the point of revolt nobody will be around because they will be dead protecting the oil fatcats interests in Iraq. I hope we wake up before then.

Until that happens, I will keep taking public transportation in my manual wheelchair. I can drive I just can't afford a vehicle. When I am able to afford a vehicle most of my travel will still be public transit.

I am green. I am fit. I save money for myself and the government because I don't need nor want an electric wheelchair (though I am one of the few truly qualified).

Peace, let the revolution begin!

$10 gas, that would surely hasten the demise of unsustainable transportion methods and the living arrangement that it has fostered, suburbia.
One of the reasons cars replaced horses is that they were cheaper. A horse needs feed and care whether you use it or not.
Cheers to you, Tomg.

what was the ev-1 max speed??

Martin, I would be happy to use public transportation to commute to work if it were available. Trains would be best. But I live in southern California, where public transportation just isn't considered important, despite terrible air pollution and routinely awful freeway congestion.

Justinbattle, the top speed of the production EV1 was 80 mph. This was set by computer to protect the motor from overspeeding. The transmission only has a single speed, so the motor is turning pretty fast at full speed.

It was still possible to exceed 80mph when going downhill, but I didn't push mine since I knew the limit was there for a good reason.

The EV1 that set the land speed record for EVs (186 mph?) was highly modified; among other things, the gear ratio was decreased so that the motor wouldn't fly apart. This resulted in much lower wheel torque and acceleration at lower speeds.

Phill, that is exactly my point. Government doesn't give a crap about things that could actually help the environment.
When I lived in Chicago, I couldn't complain about city transit system. Worked just fine. I had a car there but used it rarely. I live in Florida now, transit system is practically nonexistent and ridiculous.
Our government is busy collecting bribes from oil buddies, so why would they worry about some stupid public transortation.

Cars may be cheaper but horses are way prettier...

It's good to see facts supported arguments FOR EV vehicles, Soloar, Wind and Nuclear. Thanks for the facts and links to studies,etc.

Polititians are supposed to be the voice of the people...at least they are until after they get elected. Then Big business takes control of them. Polititions dont care about the environment because Big Business controls them. Their main goal is not the environment, it's $$, and to make $$ you need to reap resources from the enviroment until it runs out (then you go reap it elsewhere). That's Big business and that's who is controlling our polititians.

We need someone to go build an EV-only company and sell them to make $$. Maybe then we can take back control of our polititians and have them do more for the environment. I think EVs are the best bang-for-the-bucks solution for the enviroment.

I for one would buy an EV, since Im planning to have solar generating electricity installed on my roof. My brother already has them, and he's paying $50/year for electricity, and generating more than he needs...If only he and I can get an EV.

I am slowly becoming the "Freak" in our group after trying to convince people to sign up for NJs green program where a certain % of your energy comes from renewable energy sources and not directly PSE&G. All my liberal (YES!! liberal...I know what an evil word lately) suddenly paused and wonder about cost.

This brings me to the main point: I HOPE AND HOPE AND HOPE that gas goes skyrocketing so that the US can join the rest of the freak world and drive effecient cars and recycle. Until hybrids and EVS or any other GREEN technology is the affordable alternative it will never go anywhere.

PS. Does anyone know where I can find solar panel shingles? That scientist couple showed it in the EV movie?

yeah...totally becoming a tree hugger

"well, this SUV drove more than 100 miles through the desert - without a driver. A driverless vehicle is not a dinosaur but indeed a technolgy of the future."

Sorry, but the computers they put in the SUV drove the vehicle, not the SUV itself.. Those same computers can be put into an electric car. So SUV's are not futuristic. I'll also mention that in that particular article (if you read it), many of those cars ran into trees and off cliffs. It's this type of misunderstandings that only show how far we need to go to understand the truth of what's going on.

Phil, you made some serious errors in saying DC is more effecient than AC. That is WRONG!!! First what current do you think transformers use?? Well it is AC. Transformers ONLY WORK WITH AC. AC is alternating current. Notice the keyword ALTERNATING. That is current that changes over time. With AC you can take a low voltage such as so 500,000 volts and jack it up to 1,000,000 volts using a transformer which effectively reduces the I^2R losses because less current will flow through the wires wince power is the product of votlage and current. So 5,000,000 watts with 1,000,000 volts is much less (5 amps) current flowing through the wires than using the lower 500,000 volt voltage. That is why AC is more efficient than DC. Also you made one last error in saying the high voltage line is DC, when it is AC!! Use logic man, come on!!

read: www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/collection/event.php?id=3456872&lid=1

Simple_logic, you really should do your homework before flaming. See, among other links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC

As an electrical engineer with two degrees and 30 years experience, I am well aware of the difference between AC and DC, and of the properties of transformers.

While it's true that transformers only work with AC, modern technology now makes it easy to convert very large amounts of DC power to AC and back again. While it's true that most transmission lines are AC, you'll learn in that article that DC is actually more efficient for very long transmission lines, or for even short undersea cables.

> It (EV1) was only available in CA and AZ.

Exactly. I was a GM (subsidiary) employee throughout the 90s, and would have loved to have purchased one of these (EV1S), but they were never offered in Michigan -- where SUVs were flooding the roads, fueled by low gas prices, employee discounts, and ridiculous tax rebates/credits, and massive advertising.

An additional advatange that to electric: exchanging battery packs & motors instead of buying whole new vehicles. Mmmm...modularity (drool, droool, drool).

Try Sunpower Corp. for Solar Powered Roof Shingles

To Ka9q,
Thanks for a refeshing person who know.
In 1995 I have an article about a Chrylser LHS that was converted to electric. Faster, further, and efficient with flywheels, no batteries to wear out and 80% efficient to charge/discharge. Sold out and never to be seen again. One 25 pound flywheel assembly would power the car 17 miles and it had 20 of these. I live one mile from work and typically never exceed 10 mile a day. Perfect for me. I will have to build one myself if I want this. I still have the magazine to reminisce about.
Ken

Ken, can you point me to further information about your flywheel car? I've read about them from time to time, though I'm concerned about their safety -- should they fail, a lot of energy is released very quickly in a very small volume -- think "fragmentation bomb".

Here is a link to some PV shingles

http://www.solar-components.com/pvshingl.htm

I am not waiting for the market driven auto industry to build a sensible hybrid/electric, I am welding one together in my garage right now. I hope to have a webcam setup soon for anyone interested, but first a few of my thoughts.

1. Toyota, while raising everyones awarenes with the Prius, have bastardized the term hybrid/electric. What they have created is a hybrid/gas car that is as most people should know, one of the most filthy poluters one can buy. By using a weak gas engine, occasionally boosted by an electric motor they have created an inefficiant disaster.

2. The concept of needing a 3500lb. machine to transport my 185lb. self to the office is nothing short of hilarious.

Let's start from the bottom and work up efficiency wise. Walk: 185lb.self, bike: self +25lbs., motorcycle: self +250lbs, car: self + 3500lbs! There is a hugh gap there, the one between motorcycle and car.

I love my 3500lbs. Mercedes, no doubt about it. i have become acustomed to electric seats and cup holders no doubt about it but I really don't NEED a 3500lbs. vehicle to get me to work comfortably, safely and efficiently.

Instead I am build a tandem seat, tube frame vehicle that will look very much like VW's 1 litre car http://seriouswheels.com/cars/top-vw-1-liter-car.htm

It will weigh approximately 700 lbs. (excluding batteries) be powered by a 120 hp electric motor and have an onboard 8KW diesel genset.

It will have a chromemoly tube frame chassis, fiberglass body with a CVT (continuos variable transmission) from Comet and be capable of 80-100 mile range on batteries alone with unlimited range on the genset, stopping for fuel of course. I have priced the components out at around $10500.

As you can imagine, it will be quite fast with such a high power to weight ratio, roughlyy equal to a Corvette.

Benefits?
1. I won't look like an idiot driving around in a 3500lbs car to corner store.

2. I will drive all year for what it costs all of you to fill your dinasour with two tank fulls.

3. It will have an opperational carbon foot print of near zero ( I buy my electricity from npower who get ALL of their electricity from renewable sources).

4. It will be fun and fast to drive and a blast to build, furthermore, I can look down my nose at the rest of you :)

5. Did I mention I won't look like an idiot driving around in a 3500lbs vehicle?

Final thoughts: Lead acid batteries are 100% recyclable and will last 4+ years in this application. The hydrogen economy is science fiction for at least three reasons. I'll keep my Merc for toting my family around and the cup holders.

It's just like the one guy says in the movie "GM would make a car that ran on pig shit if it would sell".

Hay Andy, you obviously haven't been paying attention. The EV-1 would sell. So many people want a car like that they have been building their own. Some people aren't stupid enough to buy into the SUV hype. They are not any safer than a standard sized passenger car. See http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0504/23/B03-158386.htm
or do a search on "SUV Deaths" The reason the car companies don’t want to make EV’s is the long life of the car and the fact they don’t require maintenance. Every reason the car companies have given for not making EV's has been proven to be lies. Just watch “Who Killed The Electric Car” or “An Inconvenient Truth” or can’t you handle the truth. It might mean the right wingers have been wrong.
Suuu-Veee. Like calling the hogs they are.

NetFlix already has the movie available for rent.
Very interesting, and pretty convincing that lack of demand was not what killed the electric car. Could have had a little more info on the relative overall emissions and pollution, however there were solar powered charging stations and since the power solar produces is DC, the whole system can be DC without having to convert to AC, which makes it an appropriate use for Solar generated electricity. The BEDZEd development in england reserved the solar power generated for car charging for this reason.

When comparing pollution via an EV versus a ICE car, you can't just compare tailpipe emissions with the emissions of an electric generating plant.

Some things to note, the electricity used to extract and refine a gallon of gas is enough to drive an electric vehicle for over 40 miles! So if that was it, it would be a wash pollution wise when comparing EV and ICE cars. But a gas car also has pollution when being driven, and there's transportation costs of the gas, distribution costs, etc. Also a lot more consumables with a gas car that an EV doesn't have (oil changes, mufflers, etc).

Course an EV has a big disadvantage over a gas car, the batteries. But currently, lead-acid batteries are over 90% recycled, and whatever battery technology EVs end up with will probably be heavily recycled too.

- Ton

Watched "Who Killed the Electric Car" recently (great documentary), then i heard that GM and Tesla are making another run at the electric car (yay for progress!) hopefully development of this technology can go on unhindered by the corporations that depend on oil consumption.

its stupid, they're trying to make fuel efficient cars when they had the answer all along.

I think it is humerous at the record losses posted at GM. They really had the jump on technoligy with the EV1 but decided to put all their effort into SUV's and gas guzzeling vehicles. It is also interesting that the best fuel economy vehicle with a GM badge was the Geo (Chevrolet) Metro. The original 3 cylinder XFI could get a respectable 51+mpg. Most people think of them as a lowly poor persons car. But the reality with the regular maintance I have seen them with over 250K miles with regular service. You don't see GM rushing back to Suzuki (the manufacturer of the Metro) to bring it back either. The Suzuki GM replacement is the Aveo and as small as it (simular than the Metro) gets 32mpg. So GM and big oil are not somehow related? We do not need a greed inspired company. I think we would be better off without GM. Most likely we will see Toyota make a bid to take over the ailing automaker then all the overpaid corporate descision makers at GM will be replaced by hard working japenese who had the hindsight to build a car for tomarrow today.

I recently saw 'Who Killed the Electric Car' then went and bought a copy! This was a few weeks ago and my blood pressure is still way high!

Between the politicians in Washington and the idiots running Corporate America, the USA is fast becoming a 'Third World Country'. We have the resources to become energy independent; for strategic reasons. The whole 'Green Environment' thing is so politicized that it has become meaningless. We need energy independence because it is good for everyone! We WILL run out of fossil fuel eventually.

Between the idiots in Washington regulating everything and making free enterprise and innovation dirty words, the USA struggles and has become a beggar nation (begging Saudi Arabia to increase oil production - disgusting!).

I agree that GM is run by idiots; they could have ruled the world with an ‘EV3’ by now with gas prices going towards $5+ a gallon in the USA. Elsewhere in the world (see CHINA!) the demand for transportation is growing exponentially while the fossil fuel supply remains somewhat constant. Supply & demand rule and always will.

We need to open up all resources (yes in Florida offshore; the Chinese are drilling why aren’t we?) to development. Remove the bureaucratic shackles that the government has placed on nuclear and refinery resources. Open up shale oil and coal development; yes they can burn clean if we utilize technology and environmentally sound extraction techniques. Set up wind farms (even off Senator Kennedy’s home!) where reasonable. Set up solar farms in the empty desert. As the utilization increases the price decreases as economies of scale are achieved.

Government, get out of the way. Let the people go!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you may have read. DONG (Danish Oil and Natural Gas) in Denmark are going to invest a lot of money 120mill.$ in a system of charging/decharging stations for electric cars. Renault-Nissan will bulid some of the cars, thebatteries will be leased. For longer drives a fast automated changing system will be built at gas stations around in Denmark. The smart sceme is to charge the cars, through the night or when there is excess energy from the windmills ( producing appr. 19% of the electric energy used in denmark)
When the car is connected to the grid it can also deliver power back to the net. Using intilligent electricity meters, a preset allowed discharge, mobile phone connection, the user has the possibility to minimize the price for running the car,
Electricity is heavily taxed in Denmark to save energy ( 1 kWhour cost 0.45 $, 1 gal of gasoline cost 5.6 $). Another cheap way of running on electricity is a bicycle with a small motor supporting your own work. The motor only helps when you are pedalling. The help stops at a speed of 14-15 miles. The price is 1000 to $. I have tried to follow a nice middle aged lady (my own age of 63) on my bicycle, it was hard. People get a new freedom in this way. In Copenhagen where I live, we have bicycle lanes all over the town.
Link: www.dongenergy.com