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From: Hachiroku ハチロク on 13 Aug 2010 17:51
On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:52:14 -0700, SMS wrote:

> On 13/08/10 11:12 AM, Agnasty Shagnasty wrote:
>
>> For $13,000 you can purchase an extra 4,700+ gallons of gas! The
>> difference between the extra range would take you 75 years plus to break
>> even. Forget it.
>
> Those purchasing electric cars and hybrids are not doing so based on
> economics.


Bull. They're going to have to pay for an amount of gas anyway.

They're purchasing them because they're either Bleeding Edgers, and/or
they think they're actually saving the planet. How much coal does it take
to charge the car?


Now, if there were more Nuke plants, windfarms and solar, it could be
argued these cars are actually having an environmental impact. But the
same people who buy these cars are (in my area, at least) also opposed to
nukes and wind power (kills birds, ya know!) and sloar is just too damn
expensive. So they are offsetting their 'carbon footprint' to the evil
electric company.



From: Peter Granzeau on 13 Aug 2010 18:33
On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:48:00 -0500, Bob Cooper <bc(a)nowhere.com> wrote:

>Although much about the Volt isn't known, one thing that seems pretty
>clear is it is targeted at consumers who drive about 40 miles a day, but
>don't want to worry about being stranded with a dead battery, want the
>ability to take occasional longer trips, and have a place to plug in.
>That's a pretty big market.
>Since it's motivated purely "electrically" it may not be suitable for
>continual long distance driving with basically an ICE generator powering
>electric motors to propel it.
>The Prius is "mostly" driven forward by mechanical torque from its ICE.
>From what little I've read the Prius has no issue with cross-country.
>Don't know if that will be true with the Volt.
>I might be wrong, but that's how I understand it now.

Although I didn't drive an expensive car, I probably never drove my car
more than 40 miles a day while working. My commute to work was 6 miles,
and otherwise driving around town might or might not be 28 miles or
more. That use, the Volt might make without ever using the engine.
From: Clive on 13 Aug 2010 19:11
In message <4c65943e$0$22150$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>, SMS
<scharf.steven(a)geemail.com> writes
>If Toyota would do a plug-in hybrid version of the Prius with a battery
>range of even 20 miles (enough for most around town driving) without
>increasing the price of the vehicle, and gasoline went way up in price,
>then you might see some economic benefit. The bigger benefit would be a
>societal benefit of importing less oil, though not if the electricity
>was generated with oil. A nation of plug-in hybrids that are charged by
>nuclear and hydro-electric power is what's needed.
The Toyota Prius Plug-in, can do 12.5 miles at 62 mph on battery power.
(What Car September 2010)
--
Clive

From: SMS on 13 Aug 2010 20:25
On 13/08/10 4:11 PM, Clive wrote:

> The Toyota Prius Plug-in, can do 12.5 miles at 62 mph on battery power.

If your workplace has free charging stations than 12.5 miles would work
for a large percentage of the population, especially if at lower speeds
the range is greater, which it should be. The average U.S. commute is
about 15 miles one way, and takes about 25 minutes, so the average speed
is around 36mph.

The key thing is that people don't want to buy an electric car solely
for commuting and need another car for longer trips; both the initial
cost and the ongoing costs are too high (insurance, maintenance,
registration, parking). The mass market vehicle that can be plugged in
has to be a plug-in hybrid, or an electric car with a self-contained
battery charger like the Volt.
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