How about we end all this **** and everybody drive Golf carts, they’re electric.

Don’t tell me, let me guess: it’ll look like a gay happy insect.

you guys nailed it.

My dad’s golf-cart can beat up your dad’s Renault.

Does it really have to say “zoom” on the front of this car? Regarding the other article about airbags on outsides of cars for bicycles, I think the bicycle’s should be required to have airbags on them so they don’t hurt the driver of this thing.

It’s a friggin Smurf!

who ELSE is building an electric car?? ferrari, are you there? anyone else want to through their ” i’m making an electric car to” card into the pile of crap that’s coming out? oh wait, not the volt cause it is “stylish”

The funny thing is, there is no break through technology where electyric cars are concerned, so who is resopnsible for starting this whole EV Hype, Tesla, GM, who?

You guys don’t need to worry, doubt it would be sold in the U.S. anyway, at least not at first (like the Smart car or Think).

Who started all this? Twin concerns of peak oil and global warming, that’s who. As far as breakthrough technologies, I bet it will use the new automotive-safe Lithium Ion batteries. NiMH batteries could be used but Chevron-controlled Cobasys has those patents and hasn’t allowed electric-only vehicles to use NiMH batteries (only hybrids) since the demise of the RAV4 EV and EV-1 electric vehicles, which effectively stopped all EV development for several years.

Golf carts don’t sound like such a bad idea

Here is the problem with electric concept. European union noted shift to coal to produce electricity for the same reason as US is producing fuel efficient cars - expensive oil and natural gas. The electricity to move the car will be produce by coal burning plant which most likely will pollute more producing electricity to move bunch of electric cars then driving small fuel efficient cars on gasoline/diesel.
nerfer, we can see very same car marketed by Nissan. We already see Renault in Nissan skin: Versa aka Megane. Also, as far as patent for NiMH batteries controlled by Chevron: the demand is so high and research is so intense that by now those patents are already worthless. I am sure there are hundreds of patents that go around those controlled by Chevron. It is the nature of free market.

autonut- Did you know that without exceeding the United States peak electricity demand, Americans could charge over 100,000 vehicles on the electric grid today? If they did it at night when peak demand is low, that number would be around 200,000.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, just enough to power all the vehicles in Vermont… don’t listen to the bullcrap about “overloading” the power grid, those fore mentioned figures aren’t without exceeding the electric grids capacity. If this wasn’t an internet forum since there’s not really a point to get across, I would say something along the lines of get your head out of your ass, and look it up yourself. If you want to listen to large bodies of laughing CEO’s and chairmen, petrol companies and electric affiliates, then there’s something seriously wrong…

A $600 solar panel on your roof, $200 control box if you choose to hook it directly to your house, not back into the grid, and we’re set… without worrying about a grid to power electric vehicles. The technology is there, and it’s a proven fact that electric vehicles are less expensive… even Lithium Ion batteries aren’t that complicated, but they choose to make it complicated.

HemiRoadRunner, the car in the picture is the 1992 concept.

jayjc08, if I can credit graduate education it would be one thing I learned: if there are money to be made - somebody will make it! Therefore if electric car is profitable somebody will build and make their bucks on it. Norwegians are actually doing it very well. 200,000 cars is not statistically significant number in a country with over 100 million cars on the road. I never saw large bodies of CEO’s laughing - they are very busy making money (for themselves). Instead of searching for conspiracy theories read Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - highly entertaining and good learning material.

whats with the 2 secret service agents in the car? lol; i could see it know; “this is zoom 1, we have section 4a cleared” lol.

That’s a 1992 concept? Gives me all the more reasoning that car companies are in with big oil. They had 16 years to research this! Amazing!

autonut- I read an online preview just a few days ago. It sounds like a really good book, I haven’t read anything else from either author. It’s very important to note on how he takes up on negative incentives, and his three standpoints (moral, social and financial).

Didn’t really get the things about names correlating (or not) to success in the last few chapters, aside from the author sort of beating around the bush.

But what I cited wasn’t a conspiracy theory. Well, I don’t want to say it isn’t some form or another of a conspiracy, but my point was we have the resources to “fuel” electric vehicles. A friend of mine has a few solar panels, grows his own food, hippy kind of guy, but pretty much just pays land taxes and waste costs. It would be more efficient to expand the electric grid than the normal fill up and go method- much more efficient, much less costly and less pollutants.

The greatest thing is, he makes money doing this by putting electricity back into the grid. I’d bang that.

A Gas powered car can be pretty, nice, cool, aggressive, controversial, big, small, medium, blue, red, white,yellow,purple, fast, slow, crappy,worthy,expensive,cheap and allll others things…

Apparently electric powered cars only can be SMALL, SLOW, BLUE and UGLY.

jayjc08, I’ve read about number of people getting paid for electricity they put back into the grid. I constantly looking for prices on the gadgetry to produce electricity to come down. In reality, if you CAN put the whole system together without electrician and invest only in parts you’ll have to spend you life waiting for payoff. There is nothing remotely effective for real house with fridge, heater, A/C on the market. As a matter of fact the only only remotely conservative solution is ground water based heat/cool pump. BUt you need a lot of land, source of ground water not very deep and not very shallow and cost of construction isn’t trivial. Therefore we better off conserving: smaller cars, reasonable housing, less plastic garbage. Most of posters here will disagree with me at least about cars.

Electric cars are better for the world than oil driven cars. Its easier to monitor the emissions of one coal plant than the millions of cars it powers! Then you look at the energy saved by plugging in instead of the distribution of oil cost stream (tankers, refineries, foreign wars to protect it, and distribution at the pump)…you can see the need for electric drive cars. Besides…electric cars are neck snapping fast and quiet as a mouse. I can’t wait for something to buy soon!!

autonut - do your research. Cobasys really did put the hammer down on anybody trying to use NiMH batteries for electric-only vehicles. Old-style lead-acid batteries are just too heavy, so until now with Lithium-Ion batteries becoming promising (and maybe ultra-capacitors), there wasn’t a good alternative. GM sold their share of Cabasys to Chevron, and now GM is complaining they can’t get enough hybrid parts so that’s why their production of hybrids is so low! LOL
I have nothing against GM’s engineer’s, they made a great electric car for its time (because of California’s mandate for electric vehicles), but their management did everything in their power to discredit the car, including crushing them when California repealed their mandate. As soon as people’s leases were up, the EV1s went to the scrap heap, even though owners were begging and pleading to buy the car, no service plan needed, etc.
Electric cars can be recharged overnight while the owner sleeps - electric plants can’t be shut off for 8 hours a day, so that’s a lot of otherwise wasted emissions. Refuel at home and never spend time at a gas station again! Sounds good to me. Of course, they’re only useful for the 95% of trips that are less than 80 miles, give or take.

autonut- I’m not much good at crunching numbers on the spot, but a good sized solar system at 3500 watts (usually prices go for about $9 a watt, but they’ve gone considerably down) is $31k. We’ll use California as an example. Tax rebates are $2.50 per watt, coming to a total of $8,750. Also, in California they will rebate up to an additional 30% of total costs, up to $2000, so take off an addition $2000. Already, the system will cost you $19k, including all system costs aside from occasional maintaining and any tools to put the system together.

In California and across the country, you can also apply for a “Energy Efficient Mortgage”. Although they won’t cover much of the total cost, it’s something like a maximum of $8k, they have great “rates” and many different plans.

The average cost of electricity for an average sized home is somewhere around $400 a month, just estimating considering the current price of electricity, and average consumption.Subtract about $4500 each year.

This friend I’m talking about is a kind of handyman, he built the house, electrical system and all himself. I believe he said he spent around $30k on all of his electrical systems, including a few kilowatts of solar power, a small wind turbine, a water turbine running off of a lake (he made himself), aquatic diving batteries for storage, and a solar heating panel. He plans on upgrading capacity soon, but currently he’s earning about $100 a month. Doesn’t sound like a lot, just $1,200 every year.

Back to those solar panels though. In the first year, you’ll save about $5200 from your bill. That figures pretty high however, I’ve heard quotes in the ballpark of $4k. With a $19k system, it will pay itself off the with forementioned figures in about 4 years, and with more conservative ones, about six.