Can you buy a pure electric car?

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prcan_girl

I was wondering if the electric car was really dead. Can you purshase an electric vehicle (not a hybrid)?
I watched the documentary "how killed the eletric car?" and was just wondering about it, since the technology cleary exists; Is there a way to get an electric car anywhere in the world?

Answer
Sure you can buy them but they are either a) not all that good or b) pretty darn good and very expensive.

The documentary was rather lop-sided and didn't explain that electric cars still suffer from short battery life for everyday driving.

You can buy an electric car right now at www.zapworld.com, but you'll need maybe $75,000 for a "real car".

Wouldn't having an electric car send your electricity bill through the roof?

Matthew S

I guess I am not green enough to understand--the purpose of the electric car is to make the world a better place. Would getting a car that runs all on electricity cost you a lot for your electricity bill? I didn't know if it was something you had to plug in, like an electric golf cart. In the end, wouldn't you pay more for electricity then gas. Explain.

Answer
It would increase your electric bill, and it would decrease your gasoline bill by even more.

Electric cars cost 2-3 cents per mile to recharge. A 30 mpg gas car costs 10 cents per mile if gasoline is $3/gallon.

That's pretty easy math.

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Does any company in the world make affordable electric cars?

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nogasnoil

-GM pulled off the market the EV1, Toyota pulled off the market the Rav-4 electric, and now Tesla says they are making a $100K car in the future. Yahoo doesnt seem to list any electric cars. Does any manufacturer make an affordable electric car?

Answer
I bought a little electric city-car from ZAP in October called the XEBRA. It's about $10k and designed to handle short city driving. It can go up to 40 MPH, so it is not designed for freeway use, but it fits perfectly into my commute, which is about 10-15 miles per day. People who do a lot of freeway driving probably could not own a car like this, but a multi-car family, small business, municipal or corporate fleet could probably help them save a lot of money and driving something that is friendlier for the environment. It's available now at http://www.zapworld.com.

When will electric cars be the majority?

Real

Oil won't last forever. Magically, even if oil lasted forever, it would still be bad for our atmosphere.

The power of electricity is miles beyond the capability of fossil fuels. Continuing to improve the battery and charging technologies along with trying to harvest solar power to the it's full potential is the only logical thing for the future. The amount of energy that hits earth in the form of sunlight is so vast, it could power the whole world's energy demands, probably 100 times over.

How long until electric cars are in our garages?

Answer
It's hard to say exactly when because there are an enormous number of variables at play, but there's a very simple qualitative answer. Everyone will begin using electric cars once it's more economical to use them. As the production of oil begins to fall below demand, there will be shortages. The oil companies will raise the price of oil to force consumer demand down. Meanwhile, developing technologies will decrease the cost of electric vehicles and electric power. At the crossover point when electric cars are just as affordable as their gas-guzzling counterparts, everyone will begin jumping ship.

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Are there anymore electric cars in the world anymore?

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Missy S

I am only 10, but I have the right to wonder if there are anymore electric cars in this whole world anymore. I am getting my liscense soon and I don't want to kill the earth with all the gas that normal cars we have now. Can anyone tell me where I can find a car made of electric? If they don't make them anymore, who killed the electric car ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Answer
The G wiz

Wouldn't having an electric car send your electricity bill through the roof?

Matthew S

I guess I am not green enough to understand--the purpose of the electric car is to make the world a better place. Would getting a car that runs all on electricity cost you a lot for your electricity bill? I didn't know if it was something you had to plug in, like an electric golf cart. In the end, wouldn't you pay more for electricity then gas. Explain.

Answer
It would increase your electric bill, and it would decrease your gasoline bill by even more.

Electric cars cost 2-3 cents per mile to recharge. A 30 mpg gas car costs 10 cents per mile if gasoline is $3/gallon.

That's pretty easy math.

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Is there some one out there that can design and produce and sell electric cars for the public?

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remsonbuil

when I was a kid in the fifties there were electric milk cars /floats delivering lots of crates of milk, to the houses in the city.up the hills and down.they were powered with ordinary car batteries.they had a lot of weight on them, but they had no problem going.quiet and no pollution.where are they today?electric cars are the future, and I do not see why our government can't invest in this technology and set up factories to produce and sell to the world before some other western country does.Just because we might be at the forefront of some other leading technologies does'nt mean we have to stop there, does it?

Answer
With the President being an 'oil man', you can pretty much hang up the prospects of him pouring any money into electric car technology. If he were interested, he would have at least asked Congress to allocate funds in the last 6.5 years. Maybe the next President has the ability to see farther than 6 months into the future and invest for our future. If nothing else, our future cleaner air and less dependance on foreign oil.

I know what you are saying about electric vehicles yester-century. There were electric vehicles around when the combustion engine came along. Thanks to the oil companies, they died.....probably a painful death. The resurrection is a slow and agonizing process, but it IS happening!!

How large of a panel or panels would I need to charge an electric car battery?

Rob G

I would like to have a designated solar panel electric system to charge an electric car. Can it be designed as a Portable system to take with me if and when I move to a new house? Or can one be designed as a portable system to take in the car and used to charge the car when needed?

Answer
First we need to examine the required parameters. "An electric car battery" is not a standard item. The Volt and I-Miev batteries are 16KW-hr. The Leaf battery is 24KW-hr and the Tesla Roadster battery holds 53KW-hr of energy. The larger the capacity the longer it will take to charge all else being equal.

The second issue is time. Even from the grid you can charge your electric vehicle with a Type I charger at low voltage and amperage or a Type II charger at a higher voltage and amperage. The Type II charger is likely to be 4 times as fast. The same will be true of the size of the solar panel array.

As long as a solar panel will add more to batteries than the losses it will charge the vehicle. So are we considering only standing losses of about 3% per month, daily driving up to the battery range of the vehicle, or do you want to consider the continuously running the vehicle? Lets use the Nissan Leaf as an example:

The leaf battery is 24KW-hr. In a month such a battery would lose about 3% of its charge just sitting around. This amounts to (24 x .03) .72KW-hr / month. On a daily basis this would be (.72 x 12/365) .02KW-hr Solar insolation varies by location and time of year. The daily average in Arizona at the peak time of the year is about 7KW-hr / sq meter / day. Solar panels vary in efficiency but 10% is not an unreasonable number with today's technology. This would give us .7KW-hr of electricity / sq meter for our panels and a maintenance panel would only have to be (.2/.7) .286 sq meter in size. This would probably fit on your dashboard and such items are already sold: http://compare.ebay.com/like/320700323984?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar

If however you anticipated using the full EPA range of the vehicle on a charge (73 miles) you would need 24 KW hr / day. Our best case solar panels would then have to be (24 / .7) about 34.29 sq meters (or 369 sq ft in size) This would approximately be equal to a surface area of 8 feet by 46 feet long. While this is hardly portable there have been some efforts to combine stationary and portable solar panels to drive electric cars: http://puregreencars.com/Green-Culture/Around-the-World-with-Solar-Taxi.html Here also is a portable solar panel trailer: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/Electrochemistry/doc/trailer_fc.html There are solar cars but these are not passenger vehicles. They are built ultra light and efficient: http://electric-vehicles-cars-bikes.blogspot.com/2009/10/solar-car-uses-less-power-than-toaster.html

Last if you were to try to power your Nissan Leaf continuously like a solar vehicle we might derive that the Leaf would require (24KW-hr/73 miles) about .329 KW-hr/mile. Traveling at 60 mph in one hour the vehicle would need 19.72 KW-hr / hour or about a 20 KW power supply. Commercial solar panels you might put on the roof of your house are rated from about 165 watts to just over 300 watts power output. You would need from about 66 to 121 of these panels to continuously power the vehicle. A genset trailer might be a better option: http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

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