Dying for a Chevy Volt, but....

[The Daring Dufas]

Electric vehicles are wonderful for the capabilities they have. The electric car can never take the place of a gasoline powered vehicle until it has the range and convenience of what we have now. Perhaps a small nuclear reactor would give an electrically driven vehicle the ability to travel long distances without having to stop every 50 miles to recharge the battery. My concept of vehicle range is one that travels far enough and long enough so that I must stop to empty my bladder before the vehicle runs out of power. ^_^

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

You've obviously never met a wide eyed dumbass who voted for the present administration. Electric vehicles haven't been developed to the point that they can take the place of existing internal combustion engine powered vehicles except for short range commuting which I think is a wonderful use for them. An electric vehicle is not suitable for my use because I often must travel a hundred miles or more in a day and carry a load of tools and equipment. There is no electric vehicle in existence that a normal citizen could afford that has anything near the capabilities of my old gasoline powered service van. O_o

Political rant my irritated red posterior. It's the morons in Washington D.C. who are trying to push junk science and technology on the citizenry when they have no understanding of said technology. It's amazing how much taxpayer money was wasted on trying to prop up so called "green" energy when the companies promising great and wonderful solar cells and super duper batteries sucked in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars them went bankrupt. I wonder why GM hasn't been able to put an electric car in every driveway? Perhaps it's because no normal citizen want's one of the darn things? Perhaps if Apple came up with an iCar, folks would be clamoring for one? O_o

TDD

[Jim Wilkins]

That is your mistaken ass.umption, troll.

The bike's range was about 150 miles and I had ~30 left, plenty to look for gas in town but not enough to risk finding any on the highway late on Sunday night. I've always recorded every gas purchase and tracked the MPG and remaining range.

I'm just warning not to assume the tourist areas you visit will have the same 24-hour service as the more densely populated place you live. jsw

[Kurt Ullman]

There is an area on Duck Key in Fl where they actually post (and enforce) golf cart speed limits. These are an option but only in certain areas, at least so far.

[Kurt Ullman]

And that is is power filled during the time it takes my wife to empty hers....

[Frank]

We live on a hill and I like to hunt and wife and I both have Subaru Foresters with AWD. I mention this as a guy's wife had a Prius and said it was not good in snow and traded it in for a Subaru Outback. I had thought maybe Prius had electric motors on all wheels but apparently only on the front.

My Subaru is 10 years old and only has 50k+ miles. Needed a new battery last year but remote battery still works ;)

[Existential Angst]

not

You can buy such a car with all that built in. Called a Chevy Volt (or a Vauxhall Ampera over here.) =====================================================

That is an excellent point!! lol

But I think the point to the observation of "carrying a portable generator around" is that this is, essentially, a *really simple deal*, not a $45,000 (Volt) deal. An electric car is a goddamm electric motor, a bunch of batteries, and in this case, a HD generator as backup.

How is it, then, with 1/100 of the machining of an I.C.E., these compact electric cars are DOUBLE++ the price of a Honder Fit or Toyoter Yaris??

Most people on RCM could build their own electric car.

[gonjah]

Could be, but it's true the batteries are lasting a long time and the price of replacements will drop. I can attest to the car's ruggedness. Toyota's are known for being quality imports and Toyota has a lot invested in the Prius.

[Jim Wilkins]

We towed small fuel and water trailers behind trucks and Jeeps on Army convoys in Europe.

They caused less trouble than towing a boat.

Trailer aren't dumb, only drivers who can't learn to back them up.

[whoyakidding's ghost]

Right on! At least for incredibly small values of "most." The real problem is that know-nothing companies like GM prefer wasting money on unnecessary and overly complicated tech. They could have produced a cheaper vehicle by coming to RCM for great ideas such as nuclear powered cars. Fuck me, the expertise we have here a'wastin' is awesome. Guys who can ride motorcycles at over 250mph, guys who have a hotline to heaven for driving directions, and guys who know how to do a better job on anything from running the country to choosing who should live or die. The only real mysteries are why the level of talent frequently appears to be inversely related to the level of funds, and why so many of the masterful prefer talking about their abilities instead of utilizing them.

[trader4]

Does it really matter if instead of US dollars going into the pockets of arabs, it's chinese or europen dollars? They still are going to sell all the oil they produce and wind up with about the same amount of revenue.

[gfretwell]

That must be a European thing, simply by the number of out of state tags I see, I can guarantee a lot of Americans drive to their vacation spot. Even the average weekend trip will exceed the one way range of an electric. It is not unusual that I drive 150 miles one way to play golf and go fishing. I can drive 600 miles and still be in the same state When our daughter was going to college in Pensacola that was a fairly regular trip.Electrics and the interstate highway system do not really mix. What is the range at 80 MPH?

[gfretwell]

Cool, it answered one of my questions. The engine runs in cold weather to heat the cabin and battery. I am guessing it runs the A/C too.

[gfretwell]

Portable generators are about the most expensive power you can buy, easily over $1 KWH with an engine that pumps out more pollution than a Hummer. Any advantage an electric may have had, goes out the window when you start the generator.

[pyotr filipivich]

Gunner on Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:23:14 -0800 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Or they don't need to do anything useful.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

[dsi1]

It sounds like an electric vehicle is not for you. The reality is that most passenger cars would not suit your needs. What's your point? Are all normal citizens supposed to drive gasoline powered service vans?

[Michael A. Terrell]

I've never been that far south. Tampa is about as far as I've been. :)

Some communities around here give the golf carts the right of way. They ignore stop signs, and drive down the middle of the roads. If they pull out in front of a car, the car's driver is at fault. They even got the state to build a private golf cart bridge over US-441 near Leesburg.

[Michael A. Terrell]

There were five mounting locations for 30 gallon tanks on my old stepvan service truck. Fully loaded, it got over 20 MPG or 600+ miles per tank. Dual tanks easily let you drive over a thousand miles. All five would take you over 3000 miles, if you could afford to fill all of them. ;-)

[Michael A. Terrell]

That describes the average working stiff of the era, not hippies.

[Michael A. Terrell]

Ever try to back a trailer with a bent tongue? It was about a 5° twist to the right. It pulled OK, but wouldn't back worth a damn. I would have to weave it back & forth to get it where I neeed it. I had some wise ass yelling at me that I didn't know how to handle a trailer so I got out & told him to show me. He jackknifed it in less than 15 feet. After the tongue was replaced, it was fine.