Who Killed the Electric Car?

[SebC]

The Volt is far more advance than the EV1, and it will still face massive challenges.

[JiriHrdina]

Excellent film with a pretty heavy slant - so as long as one watches it with the appropriate amount of salt I recommend it.

[Slava]

I also thought it was a really interesting movie. Apparently GM is currently testing Hydrogen SUV's in DC, New York, LA and such. They've given them to consumers to try out and see how it goes.

Thus far the commuters love them, and find them to be a dream...except for the finding a place to refuel. (From Howard Stern this morning...hence no link).

[Devils'Advocate]

The major problem with hydrogen is that the primary source is oil. And the hydrogen extraction process is energy intensive. So if we're going to blow energy, we might as well use it powering up electric cars. Why waste power *AND* be stuck paying billions to the Middle East?

I'm still peeved that Transport Canada has been sooooo slow in allowing electric vehicles on the road. I posted here before that I wanted an electric scooter / motorbike... but I can't buy one until TC approves it for Canadian roads. The same scooter is allowed on the roads in 7 of the G8 countries but we're still studying it.

[Slava]

^ I confess (maybe I'm in the wrong thread!) that I don't really know much about Hydrogen...but it sounds good!

[Bagor]

I'd buy it ....

as long as there was a taze function I could use on pedestrians the next time I stop at a crosswalk.

[killer_carlson]

Lets play Liberal style publicists for a moment:

GM killed the electric car
Layton and Dion want to give billions to GM
Therefore, Layton and Dion support GM killing the electric car

HIDDEN AGENDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH

THE SKY IS FALLING. HIDDEN AGENDA.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[killer_carlson]

The technology of getting power from a hydrogen fuel cell is solid and been around for a long time (think Space Shuttle). Putting it in vehicles has been tried for more than 10 years (Vancouver tried doing it in buses and there was a Calgary based fuel cell company called Global Themoelectrics that was trying to do it as well). Sourcing the hydrogen is a problem, because you essentially have to rip it out of a hydrocarbon.

So far Natural Gas is the best way to do it, but in the future, salt water could also be used. Also, in larger non-mobile settings, Clean Coal Technology is also front and center in the hydrogren world, where you essentially rip hyrdogen from large coal molecules and then run the Hydrogen through the fuel cell.

[habernac]

[photon]

If you want to get past hydrocarbons, hydrogen doesn't make as much sense.

I'd rather put the effort into better battery technology. Remove one link out of the chain. Wind / Solar / Nuclear -> electricity -> battery -> kinetic is far more efficient than Wind / Solar / Nuclear -> electricity -> electrolysis -> hydrogen -> fuel cell -> kinetic.

If some of the nanotech developments in batteries pan out then hydrogen will become unnecessary.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Alberta would probably heavily ramp up the coal burning if electric cars became popular.

Yup, but it would be way less CO2 and pollution even if they were 100% coal powered. A few coal plants are much more efficient than millions of internal combustion engines.

[SebC]

I always thought it was a given that for this to work you have to do the electricity -> electrolysis thing. People are talking about hydrogen from hydrocarbons?

Anyways, I really can't wait until some sort of carbon tax gets passed that makes it economic for Alberta to completely sequestrate the oil sands emissions instead of paying the tax.