What is Digg?54 Comments
- fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+30As has been stated before, a power plant can be more efficient than an internal combustion engine.
- smitting, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Doubt it's bad news for GM.. they have the best electric protoypes I have seen.
Hopefully we can get to electric cars soon. Once all power comes from the grid, it will be easier to push for a variety of green power plants, and later on, decentralized home produced green power. We all know many of our current plants burn coal (although I have only been in places using nuclear power my enitre life). - icewater, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Who killed the Electric car is a great documentary. People wanted them but weren't allowed to either buy them or re-lease them. I absolutely loved the quote from the yes man who said that there was *no way* the cars would be crushed or thrown in a scrap heap and in the very next frame we see them in a scrap heap.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13An interesting related story:
http://digg.com/world_news/GM_plans_an_electric_car_for_2010
The EV1 and the other electric cars of the 90s had a range of about 80 - 100 miles - perfect for everything but the occasional road trip.
In the article above GM is making it a goal to produce an electric car by 2010 that will have a range of 40 miles. I smell bull *****. Hopefully the folks in the original article to this thread will help give us an electric car we can use for every trip.
If anyone hasn't, I can't recommend enough that you see the documentry
"Who Killed The Electric Car" - eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I'm considering waiting to buy my first car and making it a pure electric...
- caluca, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Fantastic News !
- thecatisdead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@Ifishbein
RTFA - GM is one of A123's premier development partners. - bonexaw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This company is so going to be killed by Big Oil... possibly literally.
- steven401, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Sorry, I already have enough furniture thank you.
- and1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Go Green (GG)
- joeshlub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The electricity used by electric cars creates FAR less emmissions than the gas engines of conventional vehicles. Yes, the power does come from burning fossil fuels, but power plants are much better in terms of pollution per mile driven by a car.
- pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yeah, and breast implants are beneficial to a woman's health, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Durkin_%28television_director%29
You just keep selectively feeding yourself whatever makes you feel good about driving your SUV three blocks to the store twice a day. - betacmag4u, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6One word : Ultracapacitors
- apeweek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The batteries sound great, but this is not new - batteries as good or better are already out there, like the Altairnano batteries in the Phoenix, for example (250 miles per charge, 95mph with full cargo load, 250,000 mile battery life, safety from fire/explosion.)
Futhermore, the article contains some deliberate misinformation. Examples:
"...To date, all-electric vehicles have failed because their batteries were inadequate."
How can you declare something that was never even marketed to the public as a failure? Remember, none of the EV1's were allowed to be sold. The few Toyota RAV4 EVs that were allowed to be sold have increased in value every time one comes up for sale on eBay, selling now for at least double the original price. That's a failure?
Another one: "...because the car used large, primitive nickel metal hydride batteries, its range was limited, its acceleration degraded as the batteries weakened with age, and its two-seat layout was not very comfortable for big, corn-fed North Americans."
Those supposedly primitive batteries still power the Toyota RAV4 EVs on the road today, and are still going strong at over 100,000 miles. Frankly, they didn't power the EV1s long enough for those supposed defects to show up. Oh, and the NIMH batteries gave the EV1 a range of over 100 miles.
Outside of these two cars, there isn't much other data to even judge the NIMHs performance in EVs, because Chevron/Texaco bought control of the patents, and stopped selling them to EV builders. Funny thing, that an oil company would want control of such 'primitive' batteries.
Also, people who didn't want a two seater could lease the Toyota RAV4 EV. That's how choice works - you get the kind of car you want to drive. - EBFoxbat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Dear GM,
Please don't ***** this up.
-Willing consumer. - oldman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@steven401
Actually, the source of power is varied between some hydro power, some nuke, some coal, and some small amounts of wind, geothermal, solar (only personal AFAIK), and the ubiquitous other (pedal power?). Disclaimer this list is non-exhaustive I probably did miss many. - pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@steven
Read under the "Long Tailpipe" section:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/index.php?p=8&js_enabled=1 - JohnyD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The EV1 did not fail because of its installed batteries. Watch "Who Killed The Electric Car" and you'll see how the blame falls on many groups including the oil industry, american politicians, GM (and the rest of the auto industry), and the consumers. Fantastic movie:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0489037/
When I have enough capital saved up I intend on purchasing a small vechile (Yarris preferably) and converting it to electric. If Honda or Toyota comes out with an affordable EV before that time then it will save me some trouble. I hope these batteries succeed. - ljdmd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This was posted yesterday on http://www.gm-volt.com.
Give them a digg. - moghua, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cool, I was just reading about the "Killacycle" electric drag racer that uses these very batteries.
http://www.veva.bc.ca/features/killacycle/index.htm
"The 2006 season saw the quarter in 8.76 at 145 mph with more potential in store. It does 0-60 in 1.4 seconds." - apeweek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What you said:
"If the company selling them didn't make money, it's a failure"
Are you paying attention? They refused to sell any of them.
What you said:
There was no demand for an electric car. "
Marketing studies at the time showed demand. The 5,000 people on the EV1 waiting list may not sound like much, but that's just one corner of the country. Scale theat level of demand up to the whole world, and that's a big number.
What you said:
"And of those who wanted it, few could actually use on due to factors like having to get your garage rewired"
I drive an EV that charges from plain old household current. Rewiring garages is not necessary. - eli_lilly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2
Is this some sort of pump and dump for a123? I've seen them mentioned on here twice in the last couple of weeks. They are not the only company that is producing nanotech batteries. - Sethwm2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have been following battery news a lot lately. I am waiting for laptop batteries to weigh next to nothing. This is a huge step forward.
- rlh1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I personally don't believe it.
GM sells cars, not oil. If they had an electric car, the EV1, that they thought they could make money on they would have produced it. They may have been able to sell some but in the late 1990's oil was $10/barrel.
The EV1's were ugly, everyone was buying very very very large SUV's. Even Toyota and Honda brought the physical size of their cars up to American standards.
I do believe this time it will go though. The oil peak has hit. We are on the downhill slide of oil production. In order to have personal transportation we will have to go to bio-fuels (expensive) or some type of electric or electric hybrid. - grzelakc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Altairnano seems to have the better product and they are not vaporware. Phoenix Motorcars is already using Altairnano batteries to power their EVs.
- oliverst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is still a lithium based tech though - not something that is ideal. Hopefully EEstor will come up with the goods with their claimed batteries, see:
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/eestor-claims-battery-breakthrough-to-replace-electrochemical-batteries/ - kd1s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's a new battery and it'll only give 40 miles on a charge?Lead-acid batteries in a small (Honda Civic) sized vehicle can go anywhere from 100 to 200 miles on a charge.
That's what I'm planning to do. Buy a small car with a dead engine, yank it out and adapt it to electric. Even the cost to run it is fairly low, and much cheaper than gasoline.
It costs approximately $5,000 to change a car from internal combustion to electric drive. But it can be done.
Luckily my regular commutes are within ten miles. That's the nice part about living in an urban area. - HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've heard them mentioned at least a dozen times in 3 months.
They're spending more time issuing press releases than developing their technology.
That and buzzwords like "nanotechnology" thrown in there.
These are dangerous portents of a scam, I'm afraid. - marinist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good news. With gas inching towards $3.50/gal in my town, I'm seriously considering a hybrid or electric.
By the time I'm ready to buy, I bet Honda or Toyota will be ready to rip the balls off Petrol. companies - valentine76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great News! What I didn't like is how they only mentioned the "primitive nickel metal hydride batteries" in the first generation of EV1's and no mention of the Rechargeable Lithium Batteries "like in laptops" that the cars were upgraded to later on that increased their reliability and range. NYT has to get their facts straight before bashing the ALL electric EV1.
- SiRwhilms, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Woah. Gas here (southeast michigan) is averaging $2.35, and that's a little high. It was down to around $2.00 not long ago.
Cool news on the battery tech though. I think universally powering things through electricity is the best plan... we can refine and develop how the electricity is generated without disrupting things on the consumer end. - sanman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1lead-acid batteries have a low recharge cycle life.
- TechCF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Cars from Tesla Motors already use lithium batteries, so this is only a new form-factor for li-ion batteries for cars.
- davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2GM might just be building its own image with these prototypes, without actually having plans to go through with making them available. One of the biggest problems GM had with the EV1 was the lack of maintenance and replacement parts it required. Similarly, if these plugin hybrids rarely use the IC engine, there won't be much maintenance to do on those either.
I say build all-electric cars. If you're worried about long range/road trip possibilities, here's my idea: exchangeable batteries. Just roll into what was a gas station and switch out your battery for a freshly charged one. problem solved. it could be faster than filling up a gas tank. just make a standard size battery/connectors. make them modular so big cars can have more of the same sized batteries. hell while you're at it, you could even make a system whereby an automated mechanism at the battery exchange station can switch the battery without you even having to get out of your car. These battery stations could charge the batteries with their own PV solar cells and suck profit from the sun. what a wonderful world it would be.
**note: these original ideas, if not previously published elsewhere can be considered published first here and intellectual property of me and if you use them to earn patents and make lots of money, i want some.** - tomblag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Mmm , why wait 3 years? You can already do this now with an off the shelf Prius. There are kits out there 2kish(?) that allow you to plugin your Prius to a normal 110 outlet. Last I read, the kits allowed you to run off the battery till you hit 60mph then the computer kicked back in and would swap like usual.
- mclumber1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Tinker, I think you read the article incorrectly. GM is planning on producing hybrids that can run for 40 miles on the batteries alone, when the batteries are depleted, it will use it's gas engine to drive the wheels and charge the batteries. A trip of over 600 miles is possible with this type of system before having to fill up again.
- Faiakes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Excuse but I read the whole article and I still don't know any actual facts about these new "miraculous" batteries...
- kbro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0(Their common name, “lithium ion batteries,” is a tautology, since all batteries conduct electric current by allowing the passage of ions between two electrodes.)
Dugg for teaching me a new word: tautology - sunletd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Recommend an online shop for batteries: http://www.replacement-battery.eu.com
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yes, that's a failure.
If the company selling them didn't make money, it's a failure, even if the few sold are well-saught after.
There was no demand for an electric car. And of those who wanted it, few could actually use on due to factors like having to get your garage rewired (an impossibility for those who live in apartment and a huge expense for those who don't.).
Give it time, some day there will be enough demand for the electric car, it's beginning to gain traction. - inarguable, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Well, if it works, that photo is a shot of four billionaires.
- GeneralKickass, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0These guys have new Li batteries that are safe enough to use in vehicles. The energy density is the same as regular Li batteries?? :-(
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Yippeeeee
Now rice boys can get an electric car, save the money on the stupid mufflers, run a computer
through their car stereo to "play" the sound of those stupid outboard motor sounding mufflers
and the rest of us won't have to listen to them anymore. LOL
I don't get it....they WANT their cars to sound like an outboard motor boat motor?
Guess they've never heard what a car motor is suppose to sound like (think old school V-8) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Unless they can make the cars look like "normal" cars, I doubt it will take off, unless the government FORCES everyone that wants to drive, to buy
one. Sort of like the FORCED issue with HD TV's.
Most of the EV's I've seen (yes I know they are prototypes) look like bicycles with a bubble around them. Yeah, they get 100+ miles per gallon (kilometers per liter), but until they can produce a "normal looking" car, that has all the bells & whistles of a normal car, at a price that is similar
to an internal combustion engine, this is going no where. If this is going to take off, the price has to come WAY down. Mass production is the
only answer, but, if they start cutting corners on the batteries, geez, think your exploding laptop is bad, LOL. - JusticeRebel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0They'll probably kill themselves first
- rowlodge, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1id hit it! (digg button)
- ostrra, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0ddddddd
- Ifishbein, on 10/12/2007, -9/+7Unless you're GM
- thumperings, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2what i want to know is .. whether wind power is even safe? What if every house had it's own private windmill on the roof, to power batteries for the car and the house. Wouldn't that alter weather patterns globally, literally "sucking up the wind up into batteries? Energy is only transfered. OH yea also why doesn't digg allow you to be emailed when a comment is commented upon. I never remember to "check back" to see what was thought of my comment. SO why bother? THat's a huge issue for me on Digg. I hate that.
- JusticeRebel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Why, there's no need to!
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