Recent Comments:
VW supposedly still working on one-liter car - possible 2010 launch? {Autoblog Green}
Jul 1st 2008 3:14PM Hey, if you feel stable in a car that narrow while at highway speeds, and feel safe on the highway in a car made out of less than a hundred pounds of carbon fiber atop a magnesium (weaker than even aluminum) frame , and can afford a car made out of such exotic materials, by all means, get one.
One observation: the 282 mpg was only at ~45mph, and it's a diesel, which is a more dense fuel than gasoline. Still ridiculously efficient, though.
Tax breaks for Tesla, Model S sedan to get 225 miles, cost $60k {Autoblog Green}
Jul 1st 2008 11:51AM Oh, and as for the concept of volume discounts: I'm sorry to disappoint, but li-ion batteries are currently largely raw materials cost constrained. Over 60% of the cost of a typical li-ion battery is the cobalt for the cathode alone. You're not going to get a significant price reduction unless you change chemistries.
Even if that weren't the case, li-ions are already so incredibly mass produced that even a car maker gobbling cells up by the thousands per car would hardly make a dent. 10,000 cars a year * ~5,000 cells per car = 50 million cells a year. Even without Tesla, the world market prediction from Frost & Sullivan for production of li-ion in 2013 is 4 billion cells.
Tax breaks for Tesla, Model S sedan to get 225 miles, cost $60k {Autoblog Green}
Jul 1st 2008 11:44AM "As far as I know, LiPo is both able to store the more energy per weight/space unit, AND has no known thermal runaway issues. not having to have a cooling component to the battery will make it simpler and lighter, and higher density would mean more range for the same volume."
LiPo has similar energy density, usually a little higher, but at a cost of durability. They have improved fire resistance, but nothing on the scale of LiP. They are still quite temperature-sensitive in terms of lifespan, and tend to have even shorter cycle lives than traditional li-ion. And they're more expensive. That's not an answer.
But they better have an answer. Because if the battery pack still costs $30k+ on a $60k car and still has to be replaced every 5 years/100k miles, that's going to be a dealbreaker for a *lot* of people. The cheaper the car, the more stable of a chemistry you need.
VIDEO: The opposite of hypermiling - BMW M3 vs Toyota Prius {Autoblog Green}
Jun 30th 2008 7:37PM Gotta love how they start out by repeating the same debunked-over-and-over-and-over myths about the environmental damage of building a Prius. Starting off with the old "nickel myth" (clue: Toyota only buys about 1% of the plant's output, and the overwhelming majority of the damage from the plant was done back in the 60s and 70s, before it was cleaned up)
Even at top speed, I doubt their claim on the Prius's mpg, too.
John McCain doesn't know how much gas costs {Autoblog Green}
Jun 30th 2008 2:46PM Unknown: the actual Obama quote was, “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing.”
Let me be the first here to second that remark.
John McCain doesn't know how much gas costs {Autoblog Green}
Jun 30th 2008 2:41PM Well, I'm not surprised... I mean, when asked whether he uses a mac or PC, he said... honest to God, you can't make this stuff up...
"Neither. I am an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R9wnMVZE_Q
Personally, I find that a lot more embarrassing than not knowing the price of gas. At least when it comes to gasoline, he has the excuse of the fact that his wife is loaded, so I doubt he ever has to fill it himself. But not being ashamed of being completely computer illiterate in this day in age... there's no excuse for that. Even Ted "Tubes" Stevens uses a computer.
Veteran journalist John McElroy calls for EV1 revival; too bad it's not that simple {Autoblog Green}
Jun 30th 2008 11:44AM "In 2008 they still have the same problems they did back then. Limited range, long charge times, expensive batteries.
Nobody killed the electric car, it has never been very practical.
Higher gas prices are making electric vehicles seem more attractive even if they still do not make sense economically.
The cost of electricity is less than the cost of gas or diesel to go the same distance, but this is not a good comparison. Until a battery pack lasts as long as the car, you can not neglect the cost of the battery in the operating costs."
You don't realize it, but you just argued in *favor* of electric vehicles. The early Baker Electrics ran on nickel-iron batteries. These were so reliable that Jay Leno's Baker Electric still runs on its original battery.
The very concept that an EV battery somehow *must* be changed comes mainly from our experience with two kinds of batteries: lead-acid in our cars and lithium ion in our electronic devices. These aren't what most modern EV manufacturers are looking at using. They're looking at using the incredibly stable variants of li-ion that last for many thousand charge cycles -- i.e., the lifetime of the car.
As for the price of the battery, what kind of battery are you thinking of that'll cost $26k to begin with? Tesla's? GM's pack for the Volt is expected to be around $10k, and that's 18kWh of (currently expensive, but likely to majorly fall in price with mass production) LiP or spinel cells. The Aptera Typ-1e's 120-mile pack is only 10kWh (i.e., if they get the same sort of pricing, around $6k). Even if you did have to replace it 10 years down the line, factor in the major reduction in the cost of the cells by then (thanks to mass production), and you're looking at less than the cost of replacing a transmission (something that these vehicles avoid the need for).
Using invasive species like kudzu as biofuel feedstocks {Autoblog Green}
Jun 30th 2008 11:34AM "2. Much less maintenance is an understatement. You can't kill it and most animals won't eat it."
I read about a plan a while back from Chattanooga, TN to use herds of goats (guarded by llamas) to control their kudzu problem. Apparently goats and other livestock love it, and it's actually worked. Of course, all I could think of when I heard this was...
----
Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Kudzu?
(Yes, yes.)
Goat 29!
Why don't you eat that there vine?
Can we afford to ignore
The Chattanooga kudzu?
The vine's eaten bare
And now the whole town is spared.
McCain in favor of national CO2 limits {Autoblog Green}
Jun 30th 2008 11:29AM League of Conservation Voters current rating: 0%
League of Conservation Voters lifetime rating: 24%
Why people listen to what a candidate says during an election and not what they've actually done in office is beyond me.
Edmunds: Hybrids not the cheapest way to drive {Autoblog Green}
Jun 27th 2008 5:45PM "How about a hybrid air car. The internal combustion engine turns an air compressor instead of a generator."
Hey, if you like throwing away 80-90% of your energy, by all means, go right ahead.
