News is emerging that the big three car manufacturers, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are in financial difficulty. It serves the greedy cigar chompers right. They’ve been ignoring the public for years, building the same old heavy fuel consumption cars. Partly because they don’t want to spend money on research and development, their attitude is simply to go with what worked for them in the past, also because of pressure from the oil companies to produce vehicles that use plenty of fuel. Investing money in new technology is not on their agenda, unlike the Japanese manufacturers who are miles ahead in hybrid production and are actively researching other technologies. That’s why I think that Toyota, Nissan and Honda will soon become the new ‘big three’, Toyota is already a major player in the USA and Canada, with the Camry being the best selling car there for five years running. Here’s a christmas tip from me to them. Tip: Rule number one in any business: Don’t make products that nobody wants! I will also tell you what we would like to see mass produced. 1) Pure Electric Cars, 2) Diesel Hybrids, 3) Hydrogen fuel cell cars that run on tap water. Any chance?, I doubt we’ll see them anytime soon, so we’ll continue to buy the same old rubbish and suffer the poor fuel consumption that appears to be purposely built in. – Well that’s the end of my December Rant and a Very Merry Christmas from me. – Alan.
Posts tagged Electric Cars
MpgTips News: September 2008
2009
Written by admin
The Root Cause of High Fuel Prices
I’m not really into conspiracy theories, but it seems obvious to me that everytime there is a threat to world oil production, the price of a barrel of oil sky-rockets. So if you happened to own your own oil company and went around stirring up trouble in oil producing areas of the world, it could make you even richer. Now I’m not suggesting for a moment that any of you oil barons do that, I think you might meet some fierce competition, and at £6 a gallon, diesel is already too expensive for anyone without a ministerial expense account. I’m just saying that if you were in a position of power and just happened to own an oil company, it may seem like the logical thing to do. With grossly inflated fuel prices, many people are asking the question ‘why are electric cars not popular?’ I read this question somewhere a while back and it made me laugh, so I’d like to set the records straight. Electric cars were never given a chance in the first place, people have been building prototypes for 70 years with nothing viable ever coming from it. We are told the problem is due to poor battery technology and the inability to store enough energy in a small lightweight package. The reality of the situation is that battery technology developed through private companies is now advanced enough to solve those problems, those same problems could have been overcome a long time ago, if anyone in government or the car industry had been remotely interested and threw some money into it. But they all shunned the idea and left it up to underfunded private companies to develop the technology, that’s guaranteed to slow the development down long enough for the oil companies to make another fat profit, not to mention all those extra taxes. The situation is aggravated by the fact that if any of those private technology companies get too close to developing anything significant, the oil barons are rich enough to buy them out and bury the technology before it ever see’s the light of day, many of you smarter individuals will already know this happens frequently.
The barebones truth is that everyone is under the influence of ‘big oil’ and pander to their whims, that’s why we’re now being offered hybrid petrol/electric cars when the same electric power plant technology could easily be used to make something much better. It’s blatantly obvious that the major players in this world still want us to use oil, and plan to make us pay dearly for it, right up to the very day it theoretically runs out. Which incidentally is widely believed to be another monumental lie, the whole ‘oil reserves will be dry in 20 years’ myth. Think about this for a moment, if you’re a salesman, and you have a product to sell, that product will have little value if you have 10 million of them in the warehouse, so in order to give your product some value, you create scarcity ‘we only have 20 left’ and ‘we want top dollar for them as nobody is sure if we can get any more’ get the picture? It’s a classic sales pitch, (High demand + scarcity = high prices) The bottom line is that if people realised that oil was actually in abundance on this planet, its value would plumment and so would the stock market, and any ‘oil based economy’ would collapse with it, as there’s not much tax to be skimmed with petrol at £0.20p a gallon.
Electric Cars Are The Future
So with all that to think about I am not quite ready to dismiss the viablility of electric cars in the future, I firmly believe that right now they ARE the future, especially when you realise that it’s fairly easy to produce cheap or free electricity, that’s probably also the reason the development of electric cars has been suppressed so aggressively. Recently I have also found myself to completely lose interest in hydrogen fuel cell technonlogy, and for all the wrong reasons. It’s not because it doesn’t work, I already know from my own experiments that it does, it’s because of the desire of certain people to make it as expensive as possible if it ever becomes a reality. Those same industry leaders already have you buying bottled water, a couple of water filter jugs works just fine for me. I’d like to take this opportunity to warn anyone who isn’t filtering their tap water at home, that they’re seriously risking the health of their family & themselves, I won’t go into the many reasons why, if you can find this page, then you can do your own research.
Research
Extensive research on the internet will reveal, that hydrogen fuel technology has long been suppressed in much the same way, it was first developed more than 100 years ago around the same time as petrol, but with hydrogen being one of the most abundant elements on earth, industry heads realised very quickly that it wouldn’t be profitable if it can be simply made from water. When all this information finally reaches your subconcious mind, what will really piss you off is the realization that, we do not need and have never needed oil.
Conclusion
The sad truth is that we have all been forced onto a runaway train, and nobody with power or influence has any intention of stopping the train and letting us off. I don’t claim to be an expert on any of the issues I have just mentioned, what you have just read is my personal view of what’s going on around us, the views of an ordinary man. While I firmly believe that one man can make a difference, it helps if he has power and money, and as I posses neither, I think I’d better crawl back in my corner for now.
Is There A More Fuel-Efficient Car Than The Hybrid?
2008
Written by admin
With all of the cars that are on the market, you may be thinking that there must be a car you haven’t discovered yet. You’ve heard of convertibles, Mazdas, Fords, and Buicks. And, you being an educated car-buyer, know all about hybrid cars, too. But surely, you think to yourself, there must be a more fuel-efficient car than a hybrid. If only you could find it.
This car that you believe is more fuel-efficient than a hybrid car, must be hidden in the back of a dealership behind the red, green, and yellow cars. It must be stuck between a big SUV and a van somewhere.
And what does it take to fuel this car? You don’t know the answer to that question. You barely know if this type of car exists. But there just has to be something out there better than a hybrid car. You insist that it’s true.
Well, there are a few choices for you. You could be thinking that a very small conventional car is more fuel-efficient than a hybrid car. You could be thinking that an electric car is better than a hybrid car. You could also be thinking that the dealership employees must have some cars in the back that they are creating on the spot that run on anything but gasoline and batteries. These cars, you think to yourself, would be better buys than hybrid cars.
Well, electric cars don’t get better fuel-efficiency than hybrid cars mainly because a lot of times electric cars don’t even need gas to power them, so you can’t even compare electric cars to hybrid cars.
A small conventional is definitely not more fuel-efficient than a hybrid car because no conventional car is.
And there are not any just-made cars sitting in the back somewhere. Car dealerships don’t make cars. They sell them.
But the final answer to the question is the new fuel-economy numbers that have been issued by the EPA. Those numbers conclude that the most fuel-efficient cars available to the public when looking at 2008 models are hybrid cars. Just the Toyota Prius as an example has a combined highway or city mileage of 46. This and other hybrid cars have overcome the 40 miles per gallon mark.
So, it looks like there are no new discoveries to be made at the auto dealer. And that’s a good thing. You wouldn’t want to be outdone by the Joneses because you thought you bought a great car, but you saw that they had a better, more fuel-efficient one. Nope, that’s not going to be you. Now you are armed with the knowledge that hybrid cars are the most fuel-efficient cars around and until automakers start to come up with more ideas, a hybrid car is what you have to work with.
However, advancements in fuel-efficient cars are on the horizon. Auto manufacturers are working on plug-in hybrids, battery-electric cars, and gas-engine systems that are more efficient. So look out, your dream car is coming soon. But if for now, you just buy a hybrid, you won’t regret it.
17 Year Old Builds Bradley GT Into Electric Car
2008
Written by admin
Image: benteen
There are some electric conversions that are just too interesting to pass up. We’ve talked about a 16 year old who built his own electric truck and the EcoModder co-founder’s 2 electric car, but we’ve yet to look at a car like this one. It’s not the car in the picture (the original story did not come with any images), but it’s the same model of kit car, the Bradley GT.
For decades (the pictured GT is a ‘71) the Bradley GT has been one of the standbys of kit car builders. Not only is it light and cheap, but it looks pretty good. It was no doubt this combination that led Lucas Laborde to choose the Bradley GT II as the basis for his electric car. It was purchased off of Ebay with a few thousand miles on the original VW engine, but all of that was promptly stripped out to make way for an all electric drivetrain.
The specs on the car are a little sketchy, but here’s what the original article has to say about the range and top speed:
The car uses the Bradley’s original transmission, a manual four-speed, but the clutch is no longer needed to change gears. The car has a top speed of about 45 mph – plenty fast for in-town commuting and lots of low-end torque.
The motor doesn’t make any sound, but Laborde inadvertently makes the rear tires chirp when he steps on the accelerator a little too hard while backing the car out of his father’s shop.
“It has a lot of power,” he says sheepishly.
These aren’t overly impressive, but considering the low cost of the conversion (the electric parts only cost an additional ,700) and the low weight of the donor vehicle, they seem fitting. Of course, the most important thing is that the car fits Laborde’s needs and will be yet another rolling advertisement for electric cars.
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© 2008 EcoModder.com Taken from 17 Year Old Builds Bradley GT Into Electric Car.
Tesla Releases Pictures of its Model S 4-Door
2008
Written by admin
Based on all the buzz that Tesla has created, you’d be tempted to think they were the only electric car manufacturer out there. However, they’ve really taken it to a new level today, releasing some pictures of the long talked about 4-door sports car, the Model S.
The Roadster has become the ubiquitous electric sports car, partially because it has built off of the Lotus Elise’s reputation as a superior driving machine. However, this next car will be an all Tesla design, though it has high expectations from Tesla’s own developing reputation (transmission issues aside).
The car should go on sale in 2010 with a starting price tag of ,000. If that seems a little too rich for your blood (definitely is for me!), compare it to the Roadster at 9,000. However, even if we can’t buy the car, Tesla’s efforts are definitely driving the production and performance of lithium ion batteries for use in electric cars, so we can all be happy.
One more teaser of the rear:
Source: Road&Track
