Is the Future of the Electric Car Industry in Silicon Valley? 318
fiannaFailMan writes "The San Jose Mercury News is speculating about Silicon Valley's potential for becoming the Detroit of a future electric car industry. Among the valley's strengths is an ability to adapt to rapidly changing business environments and develop new business models, something that the Big Three can hardly be accused of. On the downside, it's a capital-intensive business and isn't like raising $40 million and having an IPO. Apparently there are five companies in the valley already pursuing electric car technology, most notably Tesla motors."
Coal or Oil? (Score:2, Interesting)
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P.S. 7 cents/KWh is still cheap compared to a majority of other energy sources (natural gas, oil, etc).
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Sadly, mining the uranium that powers those reactors is a very fuel-intensive process, and results in CO2 emissions of about 30% of that of a conventional generator. That proportion will get rapidly worse as the easy to obtain uranium currently being mined becomes more scarce.
Disposing of the waste is likely to generate even more CO2, though that's a hidden cost for most reactors.
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Methinks you spell t-r-o-l-l (Score:3, Informative)
There's probably little subsidy in day to day operations. The building was subsidized in part, and cleanup (Yucca mountain) is more expensive than building it and entirely at government expense.
Re:Methinks you spell t-r-o-l-l (Score:4, Insightful)
This can be drastically reduced for new nuke plants as, like select few newer nuke plants in Europe, they can recycle their nuclear waste on site, allowing them to drastically reduce both the quantity and the frequency at which it is pushed to places like Yucca.
Last I heard, on site recycling has proved to be cost effective, safe, and environmentally friendly because of the reduced waste being pushed off site.
As far as I know, almost zero recycling outside of the universities in the US and zero is done on site.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing [wikipedia.org]
Use of breeder reactors combined with reprocessing could extend the usefulness of mined uranium by more than 60 times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor [wikipedia.org]
As usual, politics gets in the way of technology.
store waste onsite (Score:2)
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So far, despite having to pay a fee per kwh produced to the
Given that all the government is considering is storage and internment, I'd say that it's the same thing. Given enough time, it'd be pretty easy to break open those c
Re:Coal or Oil? (Score:5, Informative)
Now, if you'd been talking about Solar Power, I'd be more inclined to agree with you with the viability only through subsidies. Nuclear power is as cheap or cheaper than coal, and it always has been. An average 1000MWe nuclear plant produces one contained 53' trailer load of vitrified rad waste per year, and all plants have been designed and approved for on-site storage for the duration of the plant. Over 50 years ago, our innovative American scientists developed a "stepper" reactor family design that actually consumes the rad waste, so in a total system, the 2N+2 radioactive family produces a full cycle with no long-term (more than 30 years) waste. Let's not forget that nuclear waste is also used for medical nuclear therapy and imaging.
Electric Cars + Nuclear power grid = 0 harmful energy emissions, nationally, except for the occasional campfire, gas stoves, and our entire space program.
I'll give anyone who currently agrees with the parent post a "by" on mass ignorance fed by the media and under-educated educators, but only a little bit longer. There's a big discussion tonight on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, during their green week. After tonight, you can't even blame the media for people having this wrong.
There's room for solar power, wind power, and deep-sea hydro power, but pound-for-pound, watt-for-watt, wind and solar cannot be our primary energy grid technology. For one, they depend on the weather, which is unreliable from a regional power grid perspective. For two, if you take a KWh from Solar and stand it next to the KWh from Nuclear, Solar produces a quantity of toxic waste during manufacturing (which is always toxic, forever), and Nuclear produces a quantity of rad waste during operation (enrichment takes over a dozen possible forms, including centrifuge, laser, and aerodynamics). Noting that solar cells eventually break down, but nuclear reactors in our grid today are being re-rated for now up to 60 years of operation, I wonder what the toxic waste to rad waste (and I've established it is reusable) ratio is, given a single KWh of electricity.
Small power generation, like solar and wind, is great from a grid management perspective, because a grid operator can shut down or bring up a solar or wind service more easily than a large power plant. They need to do this to control voltage fluctuations and meet demand.
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Re:Coal or Oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think centralization of power production (that is, not produced in car) is the key. Get the electric car tech sorted, and have other solutions for producing the power dealt with else where. It's abstracted away, a power input at the service station works regardless of where/how the power is generated.
Now, if only we could get John Carmack working on fusion reactor technology...
Re:Coal or Oil? (Score:4, Informative)
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If your city doesn't like car air pollution why not ban or fine them? You could have four levels of fines $500, $1,000, $2,000, and then $4,000. (The concept is to start at the lowest level and those that get hit with a $500 will change cars before they get hit with a $1K fine. Those that ignore the fir
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Who cares?
I just want a Tesla 'cause it looks really great, and is a high performance car!!
The only thing that sucks about them...is the lack of an agressive engine exhaust not
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Well, someone that is a car enthusiast. I'm not talking about earth shaking noise...but, a good engine note is a wonderful thing. A vette with a little bit of muffler work, sounds great and is fun to drive...you gun it, and it sounds like it is being used. I
Re:Coal or Oil? (Score:4, Informative)
The internal combustion engine, depending on whose numbers you believe, is something like 25-40% efficient [wikipedia.org]. That is, 25-40% of the chemical potential energy stored in the fuel is converted to mechanical energy for moving the vehicle. A combined cycle [wikipedia.org] power plant, where you burn a gas in a turbines, then use the hot exhaust to also create steam to drive more turbines, can be upwards of 60% efficient. In situations where co-generation [wikipedia.org] is also possible (a rarity, since most homes and buildings aren't powered by utility steam), that efficiency can be raised closer to 70%.
The other benefit, as others have noted, is that it is easier to clean the emissions (i.e., remove particulates, reduce SOx and NOx, remove mercury, etc.) and, eventually, capture the carbon dioxide output, at a single large location than to try and outfit every vehicle with the same equipment.
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* Electric cars can generate power using the kinetic energy lost in breaking.
* Electric cars don't use any power while standing still in traffic
If there are more electric cars on the road then upgrades to the electricity generation to make them cleaner, solar power, wind power, thermodynamic power, hydro power etc. will also make the whole fleet of cars cleaner.
Look at the whole energy chain (Score:4, Informative)
Follow the energy:
Gas engine: Chemical Energy (gas) -> heat -> mechanical energy
Electric engine: Chemical energy (coal) -> heat -> mechanical energy -> electrical energy -> (step up transformer) -> (power line) -> (step down transformer) -> (charger) -> chemical energy (in the battery) -> electrical energy -> mechanical energy
Each link in that chain is less than perfectly efficient and wastes energy, so even if the last two or three steps (the actual car engine) are more efficient for electric, there's a lot of catching up to do.
So, while electric cars might make cities more pleasant, unless the upstream source of the energy is either renewable or nuclear* its not going to solve the problems associated with burning fossil fuels (i.e. global warming or - if you don't believe in that - the self-evident fact that we're consuming a finite resource at an accelerating rate).
They may, however make cities cleaner, and once they're in place at least you have the flexibility to change the energy source at will. However, you also need to factor in the cost of manufacturing enough electric cars to get everybody driving one (not just those kind people who buy a new car every 2 years, but all the sensible people who buy 2-year-old cars and run them until they fall apart).
No one gizmo is going to solve our energy & pollution problems unless its part of a coherent system.
(* nuclear is, of course, safer and cleaner than fossil fuels unless (a) it goes wrong, (b) the current sources of easily extractable fissile material run out , or (c) some asshat uses the byproducts for making bombs. Of course there's absolutely no reason to believe that a massive expansion of nuclear power would make any of those more likely, so that's OK then. However, its probably the only route out of our current hole).
Re:Look at the whole energy chain (Score:5, Informative)
Tesla has some possibly biased numbers [teslamotors.com] indicating than they win big, with their 3-1 efficiency advantage down to 2-1 once you factor in the coversion costs you're talking about.
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Doubtful... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and can't forget about Audi, BMW, etc. that all have headquarters in Detroit. I see the audi prototypes around auburn hills all the time. Also have seen several time GM's electric car.
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It's not as if they've tried very hard. They tried hard NOT to have an electric car, they sued CARB to avoid having to make electric cars for California, so innovation had to come from elsewhere.
Silicon Valley isn't a good place though, maybe they can make circuit boards but the actual design and construction of cars would have to be elsewhere. Land value is just too high to make a profitable auto pla
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IE Tesla* succeeds, becomes a small but successful company with a factory selling 5k cars a year. GM, Ford, even Toyota or Volkswagon might buy them out.
Sure, some customers of Tesla might call this selling out, decrying any changes to the vehicles - but it flows both ways, as they come out with an EV SUV*
Silicon Valley
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Re:Doubtful... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dozens of electric car startup companies have tried during those same 20 years. There have been many hyped up Teslas in the past and their effort amounted to almost nothing. Only a couple of enthusiasts really bought these cars at the end of the day.
I think that it is highly unlikely that any small startup company will ever join the ranks of Toyota, Volkswagen or GM. Competitive cars are just too complicated to design and build nowadays. Think about Airbags, ESP, the highly complicated and efficient manufacturing process. The only new big car companies will be started by governements of emerging powers like China, India, etc. It is much easier for the big guyes to make the comparatively simple change from ICEs to electric engines than it is for some boffin in a garage to build a good and modern car around an electric engine.
The established car companies have many designs in their drawers for all kinds of cars, including energy efficient cars. The consumer kept demanding something different.
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Electric cars developed around the same time as IC cars did. Both competed against each other in the very beginning. So I'd say 100 years, not 20. Even earlier: The first 'practical' electric vehicles were produced in 1842 [about.com]. That's 165 years. Otto didn't patent his four stroke until 1876. Before that, cars were either electric or steam powered. Please note that I tried to select dates for commercial
Re:Doubtful... (Score:5, Insightful)
While similar in form and function, electric cars are monumentally different from gasoline and/or diesel powered vehicles. It's much easier for a company such as Tesla to start their production model making cars numbering in the hundreds and ramp up their scale than it is for a huge manufacturer to go from the large scale and start small.
However, it's still a matter of who meets the magic numbers. I submit that the first company to develop an all electric car that will travel 300 miles on one charge, can recharge in less than 30 minutes plugged in, will recharge slowly in the sun on its own and costs less than $40,000 will sell like hot cakes.
Whether that's an old and established manufacturer or a new one like Tesla remains to be seen.
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First - most cars get about 400 miles to the tank. I've seen this with my parent's 1995 Plymouth Voyager (20 gallon tank), my 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis (20 gallon tank, now replaced), my wife's 1994
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I think I can count on one hand the number of times I drove without stopping until my tank went from full to empty. And I remember very clearly not being happy about it. Stopping would have done me good.
It seems to me that 300 miles or greater per charge would meet the needs of almost everyone.
Restaurants & hotels/motels/camp-grounds could install charge facilities
This is exactly the point. I believe there are such charging stations in many places in Ca
Re:Recharge in 5 minutes? Why? There are alternati (Score:2)
The cells have to be wired in series to allow the minimum wire cross section in the wiring harness and connectors. Even given that, the current demands are high enough that simple pressure contacts between cells will not be sufficient to generate a low enough resistance to prevent thermal heating at the contact and possibly catastrophic damage. In the past when I have built my own high power pack
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Agreed (Score:2, Informative)
2. Detroit has a big manufacturing base geared for automotive production and it is definitely a cheaper place to operate. Even if the technology is developed in Silicon Valley, I doubt they would actually produce cars there.
3. Detroit has already gotten its ass kicked by foreign competition. They are going to fight for every piece of market share.
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Oh, and then there's the college system around detroit. GMI/Kettering and U of M are 2 of the best schools in the country and a large percentage of the enginners stay put. One re
Tesla has R&D facilities in Detroit (Score:2)
OK, not exactly IN Detroit, but almost as close as Ford's Dearborn Headquarters, and everyone considers that to be in Detroit.
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Actually 4 with Tesla Motors [autobloggreen.com]. Tesla quickly realized that while they may know a lot about how to produce kick ass electrical drive systems, computerized mechanics, and battery grids; they had a lot to learn about how to produce complete automobiles. It's a great move because they can gain industry experience and quickly ramp up simply by picking up the big 3's droppings as they downsize. I work right by the Rochester facility actually (though I've ye
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A cool car company (Score:3, Informative)
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http://www.lightningcarcompany.com/ [lightningcarcompany.com]
Tesla (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, given the chance, I'd hand over the cash TOMORROW for one.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Informative)
For the first Teslas, europe would be a far better market. (However, it must be noted that Teslas production runs are already sold out. Can't they ramp up production any more?)
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One problem with that theory . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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I hate the word "paradigm", but really, if such a shift were to take place, with SV moving to the forefront in vehicle breakthroughs, more power to them, even if it comes at the cost of American manufacturing.
grr (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I realize that I am in Sci-Fi could cuckoo land here, but bear with me. There are some things that need to happen.. well I would like to happen..
1. Reverse the trend of people living 80miles from their workplace and seeing a >1hr commute both ways as normal. I realize this would require a society change - but if conventional cars cost too much and there is no reliable public transport infrastructures then this could happen.
2. Cheap, High efficiency solar cells mandated on all new builds. 3. Energy efficiency mandated on all new CE devices and proper OFF switches as standard.
4. Micro generation being normal, and grid "top up" being extra.
5. Smart housing that automatically switched off lights, water heating on demand from stored power, low power devices.
Sorry, I'll get off my soap box before I get carried away....
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Hold on there (Score:2)
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Now, I realize that I am in Sci-Fi could cuckoo land here, but bear with me. There are some things that need to happen.. well I would like to happen..
1. Reverse the trend of people living 80miles from their workplace and seeing a >1hr commute both ways as normal. I realize this would require a society change - but if conventional cars cost too much and there is no reliable public transport infrastructures then this could happen.
2. Cheap, High efficiency solar cells mandated on all new builds. 3. Energy e
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The electric car industry? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Our next car will most likely be an electric/hybrid RAV-4 or CR-V.)
Not likely . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
That is unlikely. Silicon Valley is not cheap real estate. I'm sure California's laws are also rather restrictive regarding employment law. The trend in automobile manufacturing is to move to rural areas where the real estate is much cheaper, unions are farther away, or the state's employment laws are less favorable to the employee. Thus, you have more manufacturing jobs showing up in rural Indiana and the Southern States.
Based on that model, I disagree with that conclusion. Sure, SilVal is good for innovation, but manufacturing is not innovation. Development of new electric car solutions may happen there, but the day-to-day construction (i.e., "Detroit") will not be there. Too darn expensive.
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* not the first interchangeable parts (
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That's all well and good. I was commenting on the analysis that SV would become Detroit from a manufacturing point of view. Your comment fails to address anything I said, other than the fact that manufacturing is in Florida...
Until the startups prove viability (Score:2, Interesting)
There is more to it.. (Score:4, Insightful)
We are also overlooking the obvious issue with any alternative fuel: Infrastructure. Electric cars, fuel cell cars, E85 cars just won't catch on unless you can easily drive coast-to-coast, and everywhere in between, with a support network to fill'er up. The last you want is to be on %50 battery life and see a sign that says next electric fill up station 800 miles.
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Just having a power grid doesn't mean there is an efficient delivery m
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You'll still need the gas guzzler for that cross-country trip, but you could conceivably use something else to pick up milk.
Detroit (Score:2, Flamebait)
That is Detroit, right?
-mcgrew
Is the cost really that strong a driver? (Score:3, Interesting)
I liked my prius partially for the mileage, but also for the low pollution and even just for the quiet, smooth ride it had when on batteries. So even if gas were $1 a gallon, if the electric were the same (or slightly more) cost/mile to operate, I'd use electric/hybrids to enjoy the other benefits.
I guess I'm just saying, they might not focus exclusively on cost/mile as compared to gas, 'cause I'm not sure that argument holds water....
Palo Alto based and funded EV (Score:2, Informative)
The data is out there, electric makes senses (Score:5, Interesting)
1) The environmental impact - depending on who you listen to (ignoring big oil financed studies) - an 1 well tuned contemporary gas car running after warm up creates about the same pollution as 25-50 electric cars charged by electricity produced by traditional coal fired plants. If you have hydro or wind production, it's cleaner. If you have nuclear, the air is fine but you'll eventually have spent nuclear fuel. I don't know how much more over the life of the plant, but you could figure it out. I think that it depends on how many electric cars. Right now, there are so few that they just soak up extra capacity at night rather than creating significant new demand. (Yes, that capacity still uses more powerplant fuel that if they weren't plugged in)
2) You can build or have built a conversion of a gas to electric today. I'm converting a Ford Escort myself at a cost of about $8000 including the car. I've seen them done for less than $3000. You can buy an appropriate care and spend $10,000-$14,000 and have a shop convert it for you in many parts of the country. This assumes you use old fashion lead-acid batteries. You end up with with a car with a range of 30-100 miles per charge depending on trade-offs you control (size car/payload/cost). Think about your ordinary day's drive. Do you really need 300 miles range? or would 50 do? Then you have to decide what you do for the times you do need a greater range. Rent? Own another vehicle that you drive on special occasions? Form a co-op? At $3/gallon and $0.10 kilowatt/hr, you can drive electric for less than 50% of the cost of gasoline, once you factor in the maintenance and replacement costs. So that leaves some head room for a solution.
3) In my case, (family with 3 kids), we're planning to convert both cars to electric for daily use. We plan to own a 3rd gas powered vehicle for occasion weekend trips and other exceptions. We expect the savings accumulated from driving electric to be completely eaten by the cost of the 3rd vehicle unless gas prices go up (hah!). However, that means we'll be driving clean and quiet and not subject to gas prices at our current cost. Seems like a good idea.
This wouldn't necessarily work for a traveling salesman, or a farm-call veterenarian. But if you commute more than 30-50 miles round trip, what are you thinking anyway? (I realize there are people for whom this is a necessity. I hope they get mass transit. For most people, commuting more than 30-50 miles is already a problem.)
Don't knock Detroit until you actually build cars (Score:2)
It's one thing to build a piece of software or even a PC, but try building something that people will sit in going 70+ mph for 10 y
General Motors EV1 (Score:3, Informative)
Very interesting documentary on how big oil and the big three conspire to protect their interests.
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I predict you are wrong (Score:3)
As to the slice, you are aware that BP, Exon and Shell are busy installing wind generators all over, yes?
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When I looked into solar panels this past summer, one of the larger suppliers was BP, so I'm sure they have contingency plans for this part of the pie, too.
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Phil
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The only problem I see with this is that small electric car companies have always been springing up. This increases anytime there's an oil crisis. They just have had a 100% failure rate for the past 50*. By failure I mean never making a profit.
*some early electric car companies did make profits.
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It's more likely that until there is an electric engine capable of hauling an Articulated lorry several hundred miles without a refill that they won't be widely used. The economy won't be able to do without all those trucks taking goods around 24/7.
Ordinary cars for that matter. I don't know the travel habits of your average American, but if a car couldn't be expected to
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Trouble is...you're gonna have trouble convincing people to buy a car JUST for commuting. A car isn't something cheap...it is $$, and cost $$ to keep up (insurance, maintenance, fuel). It is a lot of money for a single purpose item...why do that when you can buy a normal IC car, that can let you commute, travel distances, etc.?
I think the concept of buying a ca
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A vehicle that can go only about 40 miles on a charge is useless where I live and work. I walk to work, but the nearest sizable towns are about 25 miles away...
To be useful to me, an electric car would need to get about 200 miles per charge, would need to work well in cold weather (say -20F), and would have to do something about heating in the wintertime that didn't affect the vehicle's range (once again thinking about that -20F).
The parent is wrong in the specifics (Score:2)
My wife's PT Cruiser will go about 285 miles between fill ups. So the monthly trip from here to LA to see the parents/grandparents(320 miles) requires a single stop to fill up, each way. The key factor though is that it takes me about 5 minutes to fill the tank and then we're back on the road.
Call me when they have an electric car that will recharge in 5 minutes (heck, I'd settle for a 30 minute charge) so that I can make that same trip without adding an overnight hotel stay/
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What is an "Articulated lorry"?
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Cargo PRT pods [wikipedia.org]?
Still, I think I've heard of UPS using hybrids and at least looking at electrics.
An in city delivery vehicle shouldn't actually have to pile that many miles on at high speed, and can be charged at night with a dedicated service to hand the extra demand of a vehicle massing, loaded, 5-10X that of a commuter car.
I seem to remember some early ice delivery vehicles and milk trucks being electric.
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That unless they can find a way for Big Oil (c)(tm) to get a huge slice of the revenue pie, there will be no electric cars in our future...
Big oil is not responsible for the devaluation of the US currency. Gasoline in Europe and Canada has remained almost the same price as 6-12 months ago! Oil is most often quoted in USD but the value of a barrel of oil is really much more stable than that.
The US Fed (Congress) has likely "create" too much money and diluted the US currency. Thus giving the appearance o
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The US Fed != Congress. The Treasury Department controls currency, and that department is an Executive Branch department. Also, the Fed (Federal Reserve Board) != the Treasury Department.
Also, the price (in USD) is higher, period. It doesn't just appear higher, it is higher i
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IMHO that's not an inefficiency problem caused by the car. Similarly I could say that gasoline cars are inefficient because oil has to be pumped out of the ground in some far away place, it has to be transported to a refinery and finally it has to be transported to the filling station before it can be put in the car!
Well.. have you ever looked up how litt
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The down-side is that there would be a movement to get the most authentic V-8 glass-pack sound from your electric car. Then the war starts between the speakers for music and the speakers for your engine simulation... Next thing you know, electric cars require 5,000W amplifiers just to keep the speakers going, and the
Re:Think of the children? (Score:5, Informative)
Hate to break it to you, but many modern cars are nearly as silent at low speeds as an electric could be. At higher speed wind noise is the significant contributer to noise levels.
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Secondly: I've done it before when I've walked across a side road, given it half a glance, got to the other side and realised I could probably have been paying more attention and was making up by listening for noise. If I can do it then why would children not listen out for cars as an extra cue?
Thirdly: The area you live in must have some really posh and expensive cars with super-quiet engines. Even at 30mph I can tell when a car is coming
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Not necessarily, when I said 'low speeds' I was thinking 20-25 mph, and not accellerating. When I said 'modern cars' I meant < 3 years old. There are a lot of older cars in the area, and I can generally hear them a lot easier. But you get the occasional new one(or expensive well maintained old one) that surprises me as to how quiet it is.
Cars are much quieter* today than they were a couple decades ago.
As for the
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One thing to consider would be the reduction in noise pollution - with cars making less noise, the need for 'loud' cars would be reduced, as eventually a kid with good hearing would potentially be able to hear the road noise from the car from further away than they can tell the engine noise of an approaching car today. You get used to road noise.
I know it'd make many people living along busy roads happy...
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Because they have enourmous legacy costs in the form of retirement benefits for former workers?
Besides, GM has managed to turn a profit recently, though it's going to be a while before they've made up what they've lost. [msn.com]
Even Ford has been able to show a profit occasionally.
Though I do agree with your points - I mean, I go car shopping and end up looking at imports. I know I'm somewhat unusual, but why