Time to bring back the electric car, we slaves of Big Oil and Detroit

One night I taped the movie channel and watched "Who Killed the Electric Car"

I had an idea this show was about electric cars 100 years ago. WRONG!!!!

This movie is about the EV1, a speedy electric car driven in California in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was made by General Motors and all the technology is cheap and available.

To hear how Canadian cities prevent electric cars from being driven on roads because of safety is a joke. This car was driven on California highways. We are slaves of Detroit and Big Oil. Check out the youtube video.



Any money given to automakers has to be about manufacturing electric cars, the technology is there. Otherwise, let those swine die.

Auto Bosses and Unions are the problem..They continuosly look out for their own interests at the expense of the REAL HARD workers!..They'll barter for cheaper labour!..Bosses continue to barter away the peoples health, even though they help create the unhealthy work environment ..

The Unions are sent through loops, end up cutting their own throats, with over inflated benefits and wages for themselves..Most of which aren't used!..Unions have become useless.!..No use to the Hard working Slavedrones!!

Middle managers could be replaced with production computers!.

.Less pay perks and bonuses for Ceo's ..The industry needs to re-invent ITSELF..(Green-invent itself!!)...The HARD WORKERS deserve it!!..

.The rest.."YOU'RE FIRED!!"..(sorry always wanted to say that)..

Abusing workers for your own needs is SLAVERY!!..This is the direction auto industries with no help from unions have been going in for years!..Time this stops!..!...LET'm GO BANKRUPT !.

..Time to re-educate the slave drones..Teach them tech/computer skills..This will replace all the problems!..Sharing the wealth will Improve our economic health and make the working environment a lttle more tolerable!!..

Why are other car companies succeeding?..Maybe we can learn something from them?!

"Who Killed the Electric Car?" Watched it...a couple of times now. P*ssed me off more
each time I watched it. Doesn't Shell Oil own the patent on the EV1 now? Yuk. I don't think
an Oil Company is going to pony up the patented technology for the good of mankind and
the survival of the North American Auto industry, but I could be wrong.

I believe Chevron owns the patent to the batteries originally used in the EV1.

My mistake....Chevron, not Shell. The patent on the batteries for the car to make it go, and
not the car itself. It's still kind'a stinky that this was bought up by an Oil Company...and then
doesn't see the light of day (to the best of my knowledge) in over a decade now. What has
Chevron done with the patent beyond putting it in a drawer and out of the public's hands?

Come on guys. Nobody has a patent on the electric car and no oil company is keeping this information away from us As I see it right now, the best answer is the Hybrid. The Hybrid is generally powered by a very efficient gas engine and uses an electric motor to help it up hills and to help it accelerate. The current Toyota Camry hybrid gets around sixty mpg. At this point pure electric cars don't have the range for anything but a short commute to work and back.
There are all sorts of exotic batteries around but the cheapest, most reliable, and most recyclable, is the old lead/acid battery we have in most of our cars.

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• In 1990, the State of California enacted a zero-emissions mandate, forcing auto manufacturers who sold their cars in the State of California to require that at least 10% of the automobiles that are sold here have zero-emissions.

• In 2002 the Bush administration sided with the automakers to fight the zero-emissions mandate. The Bush administration, General Motors, other U.S. automakers and the oil companies committed sabotage against the American people and the environment. Because of the lawsuit, California will not make any strides in improving our air quality. To continue to build internal combustion engines will result in more photochemical smog and will cause more lung cancer and respiratory disease.

• At about that time, General Motors embarked on a program to deceive the public and the lawmakers. They introduced the EV1 as a revolutionary concept car. The EV1 had all the whistles and bells and if mass-produced, could have saved the automobile industry from its financial woes. At the beginning, General Motors and the other auto manufacturers never intended for the electric vehicle to be a successful program, specifically the EV1.

• It turned out to be nothing but a hoax when General Motors built 1,100 EV1s and allowed the public to lease and road test them. Without a doubt, the EV1, as a prototype vehicle, met the test acceptance program. In fact, in many circles there are those who are of the opinion that it exceeded the testing program. The consumers who leased the EV1 offered to purchase the EV1 vehicle from General Motors. They knew the EV1 was a zero-emission, cost effective automobile. General Motors said "no" and evoked the terms and conditions of the lease requiring that those vehicles be returned to General Motors and they were subsequently destroyed.

• General Motors has had at least ten years notice to develop and mass-produce an electric vehicle and they have failed to do so. They have continuously brainwashed the public and the elected officials, claiming that they were on our side and they are not! Here they are again, demanding that the hard-working taxpayers bail them out. (Them being the automobile manufacturers) They are demanding the bailout funding without any pre-conditions. Shame on them!

• Congress should not give auto manufacturers another dime until the commitment is made that they will build the electric vehicle as a top priority. We must stop importing our oil from the Middle East. The mass production of the electric vehicle can be our way of achieving that goal.

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California's Please register to see linksZEV mandate forced GM and other auto makers to produce Battery Electric cars such as the GM EV1. GM purchased control of the patents from the inventor, Stan and the late Iris Ovshinsky, in Please register to see links forming "GM Ovonics" under the guise of going into production with the EV1. But GM's Andy Card had been fighting Electric cars for years, and GM's true intention became apparent when on Please register to see links GM agreed to sell their control of the EV batteries to Texaco. Less than a week later, on Please register to see links only days after Texaco acquired control of the batteries, Chevron agreed to purchase Texaco in a $100 billion merger. Chevron announced the merger even though the GM sale of the batteries to what would become Chevron did not close until Please register to see links Perhaps Chevron wanted this sale to be announced prior to the merger so it would not look like Chevron (formerly Standard Oil of California) worked directly with GM. Please register to see links Please register to see links

GM and Chevron collaborated with Toyota-Panasonic in such a way that these batteries were killed, and no such NiMH batteries are available for EVs. Chevron, awash in oil profits, assets and cash reserves, claims that "it's a chicken and egg problem" of "no demand", but that does not explain why they sued Panasonic, extracting $30,000,000. Shortly thereafter, the EV-95 line of proven, NiMH batteries still running in the RAV4-EV was shut down and killed, and the batteries cannot be sold or imported into the USA, according to one Toyota spokesperson. Only a few used EV-95, salvaged from crushed vehicles, are available, and those only for warranty replacement on existing RAV4-EV. Toyota won't sell even these used batteries to EV converters, who need long-lasting, reliable batteries and can't get them.

"A senior Chevron executive was quoted off-the-record as saying that Chevron was determined not to go down the BEV path again and never to let that happen again in the automotive industry, at least not with NiMH batteries." Chevron, by virtue of its purchase, apparently wants cars to be powered by gasoline and not by NiMH batteries large enough to drive cars from electric plug-in power. Please register to see linksPlease register to see links

Chevron's unit that controls the patents, cobasys, refuses to sell their version of the battery unless, they say, they get "a large OEM order". Apparently, they also refuse to let anyone else sell it, eitherPlease register to see linksPlease register to see links

Auto and oil industry detractors -- "oilliars" -- claim that "the batteries are not ready" for a plug-in Prius. They hope you don't know about the existing, still-running 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV, which operates entirely on batteries with no help from any Internal Combustion ("IC") component. It's easy to add a small engine-generator to this proven EV, and have an instant plug-in hybrid that runs like an EV for 100 miles, and then relies on the generator (like a diesel-electric locomotive, and they are very powerful). Over 1000 RAV4-EV are running far over 100,000 miles with EV-95 NiMH deep-cycling as the only power source for the RAV4-EVPlease register to see linksPlease register to see links

A real Plug-In Serial Hybrid is an Electric car, with a powerful electric motor as its only source of motive power, and with batteries capable of normal driving in EV-only mode for at least 100 miles. This Serial Plug-In Hybrid is just an EV with a small engine-generator for long trips or unusual occasions when you can't plug in somewhere. Similar to the Diesel-Electric locomotive, the engine's only use is to generate electric for the drive motor. Please register to see links

Phony Plug-in hybrids are of the parallel hybrid variety, where the engine is used as the primary source of motive power and the motor and batteries are just used to start off, or to boost acceleration. They work, but are still gasoline cars at high speed; even worse, without viable and cost-effective batteries, they are just another libel on Electric cars. The lithium batteries in the plug-in prius cost something like $14,000 for 9 kWh, about six times the equivalent cost of NiMH, and even more expensive when you consider that NiMH last longer than the life os the car -- even a Toyota car -- while the lithium batteries are untried and unprovenPlease register to see linksPlease register to see links

The big difference is that the Serial Plug-In Hybrid allows you to run normal driving without gasoline or oil, but the phony plug-in hybrid still requires that you buy gasoline for your daily run. Guess which one the oil and auto companies will try to confuse you with? Right, they will try to push the Phony Plug-In Hybrid or, even worse, the Phony Hybrid that can't even plug in.

In all cases, the lithium batteries may not last as long as the NiMH, and render the plug-in option prohibitively expensive. AQMD and CARB must be acquainted with the need for NiMH batteries. So far, ONLY NiMH batteries are proven to be economicialPlease register to see links Please register to see links

Even if a NiMH pack costs $25000, and even if it only lasts 200,000 miles, that's only 12.5 cents per mile; and for those with solar systems, the electric "fuel" is free of further cost. In a pure EV or a serial plug-in hybrid, you can normally drive "oil-free". It's this possibility that seems to bother oil execs. Please register to see linksPlease register to see links

The plug-in Prius, using Lithium batteries, still requires you to buy gasoline (the engine turns on when the catalytic converter is cold, or if the speed is greater than 33 mph, burning gasoline)Please register to see linksPlease register to see links

Chevron and its auto company proxies can kill the idea of plug-in hybrids: obscure the issue, and bring out "dual-mode" and parallel hybrids that can limp along at 40 mph on a small electric motor for 10 miles and re-charge its batteries with a big diesel engine. They are not frightened of lithium-powered plug-in hybrids, and since they have control of and have eliminated the use of large-format NiMH batteries, they have no worries ... unless the oil party were to lose an election, of course. A responsible president and prudent Congress could force Chevron to disgorge control of the batteries, and could force auto makers to produce a plug-in serial hybrid for sale on the free market.

Oil and auto company claims that "no one wants an EV" ring hollow when the full cost of gasoline, mostly subsidized by the Taxpayer, is taken into account.

So yeah, fubbleskag, I stand corrected and man, where you ever right!!!

FYI, the Tesla electric vehicle company is belly-up The owner just packed up everything and left. What does that suggest?

You do realise most vehicles are only used for Short Commutes to work and back right? Hybrid technology is a fad, and safety wise its the worst of both worlds. High voltage wires and explosive fuel, the firefighters I know hate them.

We have batteries and alternators in virtually all cars. How often do we hear about cars burning down because of this? With just reasonable care and maintenance, in a less than ten year old car, virtually never.

Fad? Why is every auto manufacturer in the world building hybrids?

This might have something to do with it. I don't pretent to know much here Juan so this is
just a cut&paste again (I hate when other people do it, & here I'm doing it...sorry). Sounds
like the patent on the NiMH battery is held by Chevron.

In all cases, the lithium batteries may not last as long as the NiMH, and render the
plug-in option prohibitively expensive. AQMD and CARB must be acquainted with the
need for NiMH batteries. So far, ONLY NiMH batteries are proven to be economicial.

Phony Plug-in hybrids are of the parallel hybrid variety, where the
engine is used as the primary source of motive power and the motor
and batteries are just used to start off, or to boost acceleration. They
work, but are still gasoline cars at high speed; even worse, without
viable and cost-effective batteries, they are just another libel on
Electric cars. The lithium batteries in the plug-in prius cost something
like $14,000 for 9 kWh, about six times the equivalent cost of NiMH,
and even more expensive when you consider that NiMH last longer
than the life of the car -- even a Toyota car -- while the lithium
batteries are untried and unproven

A real Plug-In Serial Hybrid is an Electric car, with a powerful electric
motor as its only source of motive power, and with batteries capable of
normal driving in EV-only mode for at least 100 miles. This Serial
Plug-In Hybrid is just an EV with a small engine-generator for long trips
or unusual occasions when you can't plug in somewhere. Similar to the
Diesel-Electric locomotive, the engine's only use is to generate electric
for the drive motor.

Hardly a fad.

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So far Ron, there are no plug in hybrids, but there are many hybrids. As I said, virtually every auto manufacturer is building them. They are fuel efficient, and the technology is here.

If you think about it, lead/acid batteries are the way to go. They are cheap and they can be recycled into more lead/acid batteries.

As long as you accept that an electric car is no match for a truck, I don't see the problem. It's just a golf cart, for heavens sake. Sell them, license them cheaply, and make every buyer sign a legal disclaimer that they are aware of, and understand, that the safety features are non existent, and limit them to in the cities and less than 50 km/h.

Here's a fun fact. You'll save more fuel by trading in a Dodge Durango for a Toyota Tacoma (16 mpg to 23 mpg) than you will trading in your Honda Civic for a Toyota Prius ( 32 mpg to 47 mpg).

Revamped lead-acid battery could slash cost of hybrids

• 20 October 2008 by Please register to see links, Melbourne
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HYBRID-electric vehicles (HEVs) could become cheaper thanks to a breakthrough that would allow inexpensive lead-acid batteries to replace the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries they now use. Similar battery systems could also be used to smooth out fluctuations in the power output of wind turbines.
The new battery could also smooth out fluctuations in wind turbine energy



Lead-acid batteries are cheap and can store large amounts of energy. But if they are repeatedly and rapidly charged and discharged - as happens when storing braking energy from an HEV and then releasing it when it accelerates - the battery's negative plate becomes coated with deposits. That limits its working life to a few years and is one reason why today's HEVs, such as the Toyota Prius, use NiMH batteries.
The UltraBattery developed by Lan Trieu Lam and his team at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Melbourne, Australia, marries a lead-acid battery with a supercapacitor. The combination stores as much energy as a standard lead-acid battery, but can happily charge and discharge without deterioration.
Previous experimental systems combining capacitors and batteries have required complicated, expensive electronics to switch between using the capacitor as a short-term store when accelerating or braking, and draining the battery when cruising. Lam's team has instead simply combined battery and capacitor in parallel in one unit. By acting as a buffer during charging and discharging, the capacitor boosts the battery's life to match that of NiMH batteries, Lam says.

Seems like a decent alternative to what is being used now.

You should see some of the crap they are driving in California. Some are driving little more than grocery carts with batteries that have somehow qualified to be on the road. The hybrids are not golf carts, in fact some of the hybrids are more respectable on the highway than many conventional cars.

....from what I have read not only are they relatively cheap to run, some have some petty good speed on the short run...

I was talking about hybrids. The Camry hybrid can go 600 miles and more between fill-ups.

That's almost Montreal-Toronto return.

cite?

Tesla CEO Denies Bankruptcy Rumors, Seeks $20M
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tried to quash rumors that the company was so cash-poor that it might not be able to deliver cars to customers who already plunked down deposits for the $109,000 Roadster.
by: Please register to see links
October 31, 2008
Tesla Motors is on track to raise over $20 million as early as next week, its new CEO Elon Musk told Please register to see links this week.
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Musk spoke with the news service Thursday night to dispel rumors that the electric-car company wasn't able to deliver cars and was going bankrupt.
The new funding, which will come from existing investors, will boost Tesla's bank balance, which stands at $9 million now, and will help the company get its cash flowing in the right direction, Musk said.
He didn't say which investors plan to pony up. The company's backers so far include VantagePoint Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners and individual investors such as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Musk, a PayPal co-founder who has been the primary investor in the San Carlos, Calif., startup, said he personally guarantees the deliveries of its first-ever model, the $109,000 sporty Roadster, to the company's long list of waiting customers.
"I've gone on record as saying that I am personally standing behind delivering the cars and the deposits for the company," Musk Please register to see links. "I have the means and wherewithal to do so. So people should have absolutely zero concern about their deposit."
The company has delivered fewer than 60 Roadsters while taking more than 1,200 orders from customers who have had to plunk down deposits of between $5,000 and $60,000 each.
In 2005, a potential customer complained that Tesla doesn't put the deposit money in an escrow account and Please register to see links if the company went bankrupt.
The news that Tesla, founded in 2004, is facing money trouble came out earlier this month, when Musk took over the CEO post and announced plans to layoff employees as well as close an office in Detroit and delay the launch of Model S *- a $60,000 sedan - until mid-2011 (see Please register to see links). The financial market turmoil was to blame, Musk said at the time in Please register to see links.
But Musk's interview with Reuters on Thursday night underscored the tough times faced by a company that seemed unstoppable earlier this year, when it lined up Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who bought a Roadster, for a press conference where the company announced it was going to build the Model S in California instead of New Mexico (see Please register to see links and Please register to see links).
The Reuters interview took place after Silicon Valley's tabloid blog Valleywag Please register to see links from an unhappy Tesla employee Thursday saying that Tesla wouldn't have enough money to deliver the Roadsters as promised and hasn't been forthcoming about its poor finances. The employee talked to Valleywag after a Tesla staff meeting in which employees learned that the company had $9 million in cash.
Tesla hasn't been able to raise an expected $100 million in private-equity funding to build a $250 million new factory and headquarters in San Jose, Calif. as investors dawdled on making good on their promises, Musk said last week (see Please register to see links).
The financial market crisis has forced Tesla to change its fund-raising strategies. It is now counting on a $200 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy and plans to apply for part of the $25 billion set aside by Congress recently to help American automakers produce more fuel-efficient vehicles (see Please register to see links). Tesla qualified for getting a loan guarantee from the DOE Please register to see links, but the DOE still has to review and approve the final application.
In February, after closing a $40 million bridge loan, Tesla said it hopes to raise a fifth equity round of roughly $75 million to $100 million in the "late summer" and target an initial public offering early next year if market conditions improve (see Please register to see links). Of course, that was before the bank bailout (see Please register to see links and Please register to see links).
Tesla executives have also discussed partnering with major carmakers to produce its third model that would cost about $30,000. With the slumping economy and the enormous challenges of building a car company, remaining an independent company might be even more difficult for Tesla, said Michael Kanellos, a Greentech Media analyst who wrote Please register to see links in July that advocated the sale of Tesla to an established carmaker.
The company in February told Greentech Media it would prefer to remain independent than to get bought. "[Being purchased] is not our desired outcome," Darryl Siry, vice president of sales and marketing, Please register to see links.


They are toast!

Tesla needs to supply around 1200 cars to people who have put down deposits of $5,000.00 to $60,000.00. We are talking about close to a hundred million dollars worth of cars at cost here. They need a lot of financial help and with all the bailouts going on, I can't see them getting it unless the existing investors throw good money after bad. Remember this is a $110,000.00 rich man's commuter car.

to the first point, its not about fire. Now Im NOT a fireman, so Im just going to do my best to explain what I was told, as I understand it.

With a gasoline powered car, the issue in a crash is the resulting explosion and the need to get you out quickly.

In Electric cars the problem is that high voltage lines could make any part of the car a death trap to firemen (Especially if they use the jaws of life I would imagine) and extra time and care is needed to check before they touch anything.

With a hybrid, you need time to check..while at the same time being in a race against the clock to get people out before an explosion.

And the inability to either act quickly nor wait and act carefully was described as the danger. Im sure Im missing huge important chunks of this so don't ask me to defend it too in depth.


as for 2.)

Fads are mass produced. Now if Hybrids are still being made in 5 or 10 years, then we'll see.

Doesn't a serious crash-serious enough to use jaws of life is probably severe enough to deploy airbags- cut the ignition? I've been in one crash, where the airbags were deployed. That car was turned completely off. The fuel isn't pumping any longer, the radio stopped working. The risk of fire comes from leaking gas tanks and fuel lines I thought. I would assume that electric vehicles would have similar sensors to trip a breaker for electrical current when the car senses that same deceleration that deploys the airbag?

Perhaps, Again, I really don't know beyond what I was told. The next time I leave town and visit my friend, I'll be sure to pester him for more details :P

This is what Google told me just now (again, take with grain of salt)

Another danger that hybrid cars can pose that many would not think about is in the event of an emergency, for example a high speed car crash. Emergency Medical Trained professionals would be the first at the scene, and may not recognize the car involved in the accident as a hybrid as not all hybrids are labeled as such. This can pose a danger to the rescue workers as well as the injured, since it is possible that the electric motor could still be running. This would be very hard to detect as the electric motor runs nearly silently.

Finding a dozen or so batteries might be a big clue that it is electric and a fuel tank would show fuel is also used.
Spinning wheels (smoking of not) would also be a big clue. LOL

Didn't it originally get shut down from production because big oil would then be backed up in gas (any refinery has to market all it produces or you eventually run out of storage capacity and the whole refinery is off-line).
That is also why they will not produce hydrogen, they could if they wanted to, but today they produce gas and that is what cars will be made to run on, right up until there is none more or less, then other options can be started.

First of all, you won't run across too many high voltage lines in a hybrid. The gas engine, generator, and electric motor are close coupled and the lines to the battery are much like the battery cables that are in your car and they will not be high voltage

A brief history of hybrid cars Please register to see links

Tenpenny, electric cars are not golf carts, that is what I thought. No no no no. Didn't you watch the video? We are out of touch here.

Saturn made the EV1, it raced around on California highways. GM made very bleak ads for the EV1, so no one talked about it or heard about it. GM is simply too proud and arrogant, they were offended mere legislators could tell them what to build. If it was a good idea, they would do it on their own. They are jerks.