[ElisasAUG]

2 hour commute each way,i did mess up slightly but you're not taking in to account it's a 2 hour each way drive.

Lets assume you average 60mph for two hours,that's 120 miles in two hours. 120+120=240 miles so yeah.

That also rules out charging your car overnight,since they're at work not home. *cough*

Also batteries sharply drop off in effeceincy,I doubt in any real world situation that an electric car will actually go 240 miles on one charge in real world situations.

I also doubt people's workplaces will allow them to plug their car in and run the electricity bill up at work,nor would there be anough outlets for everyone anyway.

Not a very practical solution at this time.

I was going to bring that point up. One or two people using company electricity to charge their cars isn't a problem. But if every employee did, then either a metering system would have to be put in place, or the company would have to allow/disallow employees from using the company's electricity to charge their cars.

That could get expensive for the company.

[OccumCymn]

My commute is 20 miles their and back. I can cycle it if I wanted! A tank of 50 litres lasts me a month. A electric car of any form would suit me perfectly! I'm sure a solar panel roof on a electric car could almost negate the need for me to plug in after every single journey.

[OccumCymn]

I was going to bring that point up. One or two people using company electricity to charge their cars isn't a problem. But if every employee did, then either a metering system would have to be put in place, or the company would have to allow/disallow employees from using the company's electricity to charge their cars.

That could get expensive for the company.

Probably would work where only senior office workers and above would be allowed to. The average worker on the shop floor wouldnt be allowed. We dont want to provide electricity to the the bottom of the pile Working Class now do we!!

[ferelrossi]

that is a rather small problem because some form of electricity grid is already here, while for hydrogen you would have to get new production sites, new means of transporting it to the gas station and new pumps

See The_Fruity_One's post.

I realise this all sounds wonderful to you,but the fact is that stuff like that is completely impractical at this time.

Hybrids and hydrogen won't completely take away dependance on oil,but they are a mor practical solution at the moment and would still greatly reduce dependance,then twenty or so years down the road when battery tech or means of recharging are quicker and more widespread we could transition over.

Hydrogen would also allow people to convert the vehicles they already have over and be a lot less expensive than trying to wholesale switch over to tech that quite honestly is just not ready for prime time.

The electricity grid is "there" but not in the scale that it would take for what you suggest and would cost people's businesses quite a lot of money and redesigning of the grid to allow people to plug their cars in en masse like that.

That requires as much of a redesign as switching over to hydrogen and has more cost associated with it in a shorter period of time.

[disappointment2]

Right now, despite the infrastructure issues, I think fuel cell tech is the way to go. It generates electricity on the fly and can be "filled" just like an normal gas car. There are some safety issues with it because of hydrogen.

Ive also felt that fuel cell is the way to go, superficially its just like running a normal petrol/diesel car so people are bound to accept it better. Sure hydrogen extraction uses power and can cost a lot, but as you say IC engines arent exactly a world of efficiency anyway. Besides its not as if tons of money and energy isnt used to extract oil anyway.

[Cibirrigmavog]

Ive also felt that fuel cell is the way to go, superficially its just like running a normal petrol/diesel car so people are bound to accept it better. Sure hydrogen extraction uses power and can cost a lot, but as you say IC engines arent exactly a world of efficiency anyway. Besides its not as if tons of money and energy isnt used to extract oil anyway.

You would go from one inefficent system to another, assuming you use electricity to make the hydrogen the argument that electricity is made from coal and oil counts even more due to the lower efficency.

A fuel cell for a car is not cheap to produce either right now, mass production would apply to both fuel cells and batteries.

[AlabamaBoyz]

Solar panels could never provide all the power, but if every roof had solar panels on them, the combined energy produced would certainly help. In the UK, you can get grants for this sort of stuff, including wind turbines, solar water heaters, loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, double glazing..............

solar panels are so innefficient now, it just doesn't make sense. I have read that at todays effienciency, it would take nearly 20 years to payoff the initial investment of adding the panels. IIRC, the effiencieny of solar panels is around 2-5%, which is abysmal. One day, yes. Today, it is just too cost prohibitive (even with the government helping),

[ferelrossi]

You would go from one inefficent system to another, assuming you use electricity to make the hydrogen the argument that electricity is made from coal and oil counts even more due to the lower efficency.

A fuel cell for a car is not cheap to produce either right now, mass production would apply to both fuel cells and batteries.

We didn't go from biplanes to supersonic jets overnight.

EV's are not a practical or cost effective solution at the moment,there's a lot left to be done before that's viable.

[Cibirrigmavog]

solar panels are so innefficient now, it just doesn't make sense. I have read that at todays effienciency, it would take nearly 20 years to payoff the initial investment of adding the panels. IIRC, the effiencieny of solar panels is around 2-5%, which is abysmal. One day, yes. Today, it is just too cost prohibitive (even with the government helping),

Low efficency doesn't matter if you got infinite amounts of the energy source. The payoff time depends heavily on the amount of sunlight you get and this is why it is retarded to have any kind of goverment incentive in the UK or Germany.California makes more sense especially when you consider the saved transmission losses.

Largescale solar powerplants work more efficent with the heat of the sun. Spain has some running that even can store excess energy. Those can be good solutions to to supply SOME of the energy demand in the right regions.

We didn't go from biplanes to supersonic jets overnight.

EV's are not a practical or cost effective solution at the moment,there's a lot left to be done before that's viable.

You didn't get to the moon with that attidute either.

[ferelrossi]

You didn't get to the moon with that attidute either.

Yeah actually we did,it's pretty obvious we did,that was also an evolutionary process not a sudden leap from bicycles to rockets.

[irrelaAnnekly]

IIRC, the effiencieny of solar panels is around 2-5%, which is abysmal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_module
The current market leader in efficient solar energy modules is SunPower, whose solar panels have a conversion ratio of 19.3%[3]. However, a whole range of other companies (HoloSun, Gamma Solar, NanoHorizons) are emerging which are also offering new innovations in photovoltaic modules, with an average conversion ratio of around 18%.[citation needed] These new innovations include power generation on the front and back sides and increased outputs; however, most of these companies have not yet produced working systems from their design plans, and are mostly still actively improving the technology. As of January 14, 2009 a World Record efficiency level of 41.1% has been reached. Return on investment is within 10 years.

[irrelaAnnekly]

We didn't go from biplanes to supersonic jets overnight.

EV's are not a practical or cost effective solution at the moment,there's a lot left to be done before that's viable.

I currently ride a Vectrix Electric Maxi-Scooter and it costs me 0.5 EUR/100 km of electricity. This is efficient enough for me :-)

[ferelrossi]

I think a good question is:Who's going to pay for everyone to suddenly,completely switch over from what we have now to this utopian idea of pure electric power and super effeceint power generation stations for all?

Because I'm pretty sure most people or companies wouldn't be able to afford doing this without going broke.

[irrelaAnnekly]

See The_Fruity_One's post.
Hybrids and hydrogen won't completely take away dependance on oil,but they are a mor practical solution at the moment and would still greatly reduce dependance,then twenty or so years down the road when battery tech or means of recharging are quicker and more widespread we could transition over.

Hydrogen is currently a dead end.

Toyota says so itself.

[irrelaAnnekly]

I think a good question is:Who's going to pay for everyone to suddenly,completely switch over from what we have now to this utopian idea of pure electric power and super effeceint power generation stations for all?

Because I'm pretty sure most people or companies wouldn't be able to afford doing this without going broke.

I absolutely agree. In no way the switch has to be sudden. It has to be soft. But alternatives have to be offered to the market.

[ferelrossi]

Hydrogen is currently a dead end.

Toyota says so itself.

I don't care what toyota thinks,lots of other people disagree,and current ic engines could be pretty easily adapted to run on hydrogen.

I absolutely agree. In no way the switch has to be sudden. It has to be soft. But alternatives have to be offered to the market.

Which is what hybrids and hydrogen are.

[Cibirrigmavog]

You didn't get to the moon with that attidute either.

Yeah actually we did,it's pretty obvious we did,that was also an evolutionary process not a sudden leap from bicycles to rockets.

We are not starting from bicycles at all, just like the Apollo prgram didn't start from black power rockets either.

What I meant is that it can be done if people say "yes we can" instead of waiting for something great to happen because then we get EVs sometime but they will be made in China instead of made in USA.

[ferelrossi]

We are not starting from bicycles at all, just like the Apollo prgram didn't start from black power rockets either.

What I meant is that it can be done if people say "yes we can" instead of waiting for something great to happen because then we get EVs sometime but they will be made in China instead of made in USA.

People do think "yes we can" that doesn't suddenly make it a simple endeavor or even a practical or affordable solution to hurredly jump in to EV's that don't meet a lot of people's needs and would be impossible to recharge if you were out and about and suddenly finding yourself low on power,or needing power after a long drive an having no way to do it.

Yes we can works,but again it's not just something whgere you say "yes we can" and all of the sudden you're just done and all bunnies,flowers and happy clouds.

It takes work to accomplish,the work is already being done,but the technologies are NOT there yet.

Otherwise why in the world don't we just say "yes we can" to spaceships and fusionpower and just magically hav ethat appear instead.

The appollo program started from nazi rocket technology which was actually not too far off from where it ended up and is STILL USED TODAY.

[irrelaAnnekly]

Which is what hybrids and hydrogen are.

But some people want pure electric vehicle. Why carry two engines (electric and an ICE), when you can, instead of weigh of the ICE, have more batteries, which extend the range even further?

I'll tell you why auto industry want electric&ICE hybrids. There's A LOT of maintenance with an ICE:
- oil
- oil filter
- air filter
- spark plugs
- tune ups
- yada, yada,...

with which Auto Industry earns it's money.

With pure electric vehicle, there's almost no maintenance. Only tires. You don't even need to change breaks because of regenerative breaking.

[irrelaAnnekly]

People do think "yes we can" that doesn't suddenly make it a simple endeavor or even a practical or affordable solution to hurredly jump in to EV's that don't meet a lot of people's needs and would be impossible to recharge if you were out and about and suddenly finding yourself low on power,or needing power after a long drive an having no way to do it.

Yes we can works,but again it's not just something whgere you say "yes we can" and all of the sudden you're just done and all bunnies,flowers and happy clouds.

It takes work to accomplish,the work is already being done,but the technologies are NOT there yet.

Otherwise why in the world don't we just say "yes we can" to spaceships and fusionpower and just magically hav ethat appear instead.

The appollo program started from nazi rocket technology which was actually not too far off from where it ended up and is STILL USED TODAY.

The problem with today's auto industry is that they don't offer people what people want, but what Auto Industry wants. That's why GM is going down.

Why did GM take all good EV1s from their owners and crush them? Why were they such a threat to GM?