Chemistry for a sustainable world

1. robert

   May 22, 2008 at 7:08 am

   I keep hearing about electric cars all over the world but not in the USA… I am really tired of it… year or two years from now ….when it should have been here. President Bush boasted that change was coming but all I see is talk or a $100,000 price tag….I think the joke is on us in the USA on electric cars…. GM and the Volt I guess not producing them with excuses is better than making them and crushing them like the EV1….I hear everyone also mis-use of going green by adjusting fuel injections to get 30 mpg when technology is here today to get 55 miles per gallon on fuel cars. Toyota them selves should be ashamed the Preus 55 miles per gallon with a 28,000 price tag on a car that is week at best in options. I can get a 13,000 car that gets 35 mpg and have 15,000 for fuel….

2. nearlynothingbutnovels

   May 22, 2008 at 9:37 am

   Robert, you are certainly correct. For several years, plugs have been available in London so people can charge plug-in electric or hybrid cars FOR FREE during the day, while they at work. Electric cars also park for free in many places in London and other big cities in Europe. I’ve got to agree with you on the Prius too: it is fine if one has the money to buy it, but can hardly be called cutting edge (though it is the cutting edge in the US, in some ways).

   The story with electric cars is that they have a lot fewer parts, and moving parts, than gas-powered cars, so they should be a lot cheaper. This is how very inexpensive cars can be produced all around the world, except in the US.

   One option is Phoenix Electric Motor cars (http://phoenixmotorcars.com/), who make cars and trucks, but they start at about $40,000. It is not a huge company and they don’t have the economies of scale that Detroit would have, if Detroit actually had any credible interest in electric cars.

   So, in the US, electric cars are more of a boutique item, but with luck Th!nk will change that in 2009. They do supply quite a few cars in Europe, so maybe they will make an impact here at under $25,000.

   The only reason we don’t have the leading edge in affordable electric cars in the US is because powerful lobbies are doing very effective work trying to prevent it from happening. The oil companies, and the car companies. Maybe Detroit is afraid of electric cars because there isn’t as much to wear out, so people will buy cars less frequently and need less service. Or maybe it’s something else- All I can really conclude about Detroit is that they don’t know their market and can design well at all (imagine opposing all the safety measures so strongly, only to find that people bought new cars because of improved safety features, yet they still don’t seem to have learned anything from how the market responded to safety over the past 50 years). For a good set of electric cars and trucks, the whole country would probably buy new cars as soon as they could.

   The situation is very frustrating, and much of the blame must be placed on the government, at the Federal level. The lobbyists are talking to someone to get their points across (senators and congressmen), and the White House is the best friend big oil ever had. It is unacceptable, but it is all we have, at least for now.

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