What steps will Big Oil companies take to ensure that very few people buy electric cars?

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Byakuya

Now that electric cars are finally starting to become available, the Big Oil companies will undoubtedly be plotting and planning how to keep people from buying them. What strategies do you think they'll use to keep us dependent upon gas?

Answer
Same thing they did for the EV-1... petition government to keep oil standards low, wage a media war against them as being weak, unsafe, bad for business, and even un-American.

(Or say stupid stuff like Greed above - especially when the energy that it does take to charge a car is a fraction of the amount of energy that goes into an automotive gas combustion engine for the same amount of mileage... Not to mention that even with the US's "dirty" power grid, electric car's secondary emissions would still be less then half of of the total emissions by a conventional US gasoline auto.

But then again, which industry would have the most to lose if the US did upgrade our power grids??? So, who can we expect to put up obstacles to that as well?)

How do I charge an electric car if I don't have a garage?

boba fett

My family is heavily considering buying an electric car (prius or leaf) but the issue for us is that we have no idea how to charge it (besides public charging stations). We don't have a garage so that's not an option, and we were wondering what alternative methods there were? Thanks!

Answer
Instead of looking at what you don't have examine what you do have. Public chargers are not generally placed in garages. They are suitable for outdoor use. There are also chargers that will allow you to simply park the car over a pad to begin charging.

Do you have a house? Do you have an apartment? Do you have a parking space? If not can you rent one nearby where you can install the equipment? Or you could only use public charging. It may not be as cheap as buying your own equipment but it will be possible. Some dealerships will let you charge at their location at no cost. All of this depends upon your goals for buying electric. Usual ones are social consciousness, expense, or for security (in case you can't get gasoline) If you want to do something there usually is a way. If you don't want to proceed all you will see are insurmountable obstacles.

Some cars like the prius are parallel hybrids. They have electric motors but may not have anyplace to plug in batteries. The batteries are only charged from using gasoline and the electric motor with regenerative braking. If your goal is not to use gasoline this is not the car for you. If your goal is to operate a vehicle that gets better mileage then it may be.

I would not consider a prius, a parallel hybrid, an electric car. Some would. A leaf is a battery electric car. It can only plug in to get its power. Between these two extremes is the Volt, which is mostly a series hybrid. You can plug it in or the gasoline engine will operate like a generator to produce the electricity needed to operate the vehicle.

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How do I convert my car to electric power?

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chickenhou

I saw in a documentary that electric car enthusiasts in the US have removed a regular engine from an old car and replaced it with batteries. Apparently it can go very fast and can last up to 5 hours.

If anyone knows of a book, manual or website on how to do it I would appreciate it.

Answer
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If you want to do the work yourself, there's help here:
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http://electroauto.com/index.html
and here:
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/build
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Here are some places to get your car converted to electric:
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http://grassrootsev.com
http://jerryrig.com/convert/
http://www.ampmobileconversions.com/
http://labshelf.com/electric-car-conversion.html
http://www.powerhappy.com/Electricalvehicles.html
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150006318396
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There are also ready-made electric car conversions for sale built by dedicated EV small businessmen and hobbyists - like me. Look at this page:
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http://grassrootsev.com/convert.htm
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The above is run by a guy who takes old, cheap cars with good bodies (mostly from the 1980s) and removes the engine. He then installs brand new electric drivetrains. All these cars do freeway speeds. The best part is the price. These cars start under $5000. You won't get state-of-the-art (ranges are more like 50 miles, not 200) but the low prices mean you'll get your investment back in fuel savings quickly.
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Another place to find used EVs and hobbyist-built EVs is here:
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http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost/
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I own an old EV, built back in 1980. EVs are extremely reliable. My 25-year-old car has all the original motor and electronic parts from 1980, which have never needed service in all those years.
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Electric cars how to create more energy than you consume?

jamesalbur

Listening to all the talk about electric cars and how physics doesn't allow alternators to renew their batteries leads me to ask a few BIG questions: How do we get the alternators to produce more energy than the car can consume? Also, Why can't we make the axles work for us to turn the alternators using a drive shaft? Why wouldn't stacking alternators work?

Answer
doesn't work, it would violate the laws of conservation of energy, or "you don't get something for nothing".

analogy:
Start out with a £5 note. Go to a bank and change it for five £1 coins (minus a service fee). Go to a different bank. Change your coins for a £5 note, minus another service fee. Repeat until you have several million pounds!

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How environmentally friendly is an electric car?

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Dazed and

We are constantly told that the mass produced electric car will soon be with us and many people argue that this means zero pollution.
Clearly these people overlook the fact that as most of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuel we are merely moving the pollution from the actual vehicle to the power station.
Has anybody actually carried out any research into how environmentally friendly electric cars are when all factors are taken into consideration? I do not know the answer but my instant gut reaction is that electric cars are probably worse polluters that petrol or diesel cars; it must be less efficient to convert oil into electricity and send it round the country to charge batteries for cars than simply burning it within the vehicle.

Answer
The answer really only depends on the GGE mileage of a given electric vehicle. On average electric plants emit 1.341 lbm CO2/kWh. Since the GGE is 36.3kWh, a GGE of electricity would emit 40.66 lbm CO2. This is in comparison to 19.6 lbm CO2/gal for gasoline. Divide this by the average mileage of the gasoline cars (20.8) and you get 0.94 lbm CO2/mile. Now to do better than this an electric car would need to go more than 43.4 miles on a GGE. Some quick research turned up that most vehicles did do better than this, except the Ford Ranger EV at 39 MPGGE.

Is Hybrid Car and Electric Cars are really going to be Future as Success Story?

Electric cars and hybrid cars are need by us, but can they compete today's cars like in Speed, Power, Comfort, Looks?

Answer
That's the whole point of hybrids and electrics. It's easy to make an electric vehicles fast and powerful, just difficult for it to have range. The first cars to reach 60mph were electric cars. You could easily put in a thousand horsepower electric motor into a car but the batteries would be depleted very quickly. We've been able to make gas cars with 50mpg plus back in 1982 which is still better than what the modern hybrids get but they lacked speed and power, the addition of an electric motor making the efficient cars hybrids is what gives the power and performance that the consumer wants.

We really don't need hybrids and electric cars. We don't even need so many cars. If we were willing to accept the lackluster performance of the 1982 econoboxes then why enhance the performance with an electric motor? If we want the flexibility to change the fuel source from fossil to something clean like solar by using electric vehicles then why don't we just synthesize gasoline from CO2 and H2O with solar power? Synthesized fuels could even be carbon negative whilst an electric vehicle with solar generated electricity is at best carbon neutral

Ultimately, Hybrid and electric will be seen for what they are, marketing to create an additional market niche for new cars just like model years, tail fins, station wagons, minivans, SUV's and Flex Fuel cars. Measures that would actually make a difference such as changing how we make the gasoline just doesn't make the auto manufacturers any money.

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