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Who Killed The Electric Car?

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I can't see anything good about the prius.

Around here the prius has become a staus symbol car will a lot of holier than thou snobby twits that drive them.

a friend has one and she is lucky to get over 30 MPG far below what they advertise.

It torques me that my state caved and allowed single occupant prius drivers access to the carpool lanes. especially when a study was conducted that showed that environmental impact of the prius was worse than a hummer

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/e....asp?NewsID=188

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What makes me even more upset than the Prius are the other Toyota hybrids, especially that Lexus SUV. The owners act all smug and want a medal for environmentalism because their SUV gets 22 mpg instead of 18. Whooptee-doo.

And I didn't realize that there was still a difference in measurements of a gallon. That makes more sense now. So 45 miles per Imperial gallon is around 37.5 miles per US gallon, which puts it in line with small imports here. Somehow I thought you guys got special extra-good-gas-mileage versions of the same cars or something. (Though you kinda do; we usually only get the top of the engine range over here in small cars.)

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The hybrids we can buy at the moment are a total cop-out but at least something of a slow start for the more pious among us. Amen.

We all know that genuine EVs have been kept back in their development. We need to make that ground up.

Mind-set is important. What we need is a price war. If America had to pay what we pay in Europe for gas then I think we may just get one...

:wub: If Iran gets mullered by Israel and/or USA as promised by CNN, the price of a barrel will go seriously up again. :D

The only good thing I can think of is that Europeans are used to it, we have smaller cars and biodiesels already...

But as it seems that most people can't get on with EVs, maybe we should all buy a bicycle? :o

We have two wars going on at the moment, our addiction to oil and the power that oil gives may well lead us into another one in Iran.

That makes three wars at the same time, here in the UK we have a "part time" Defence secretary Des Brown, google him up he will make you smile.

I wonder what he does on his time off? Motor sports? :D

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And I didn't realize that there was still a difference in measurements of a gallon.

Just so you know

A US gallon =3.78 litres(liters)

An Imperial gallon =4.54 litres(liters)

So from this we can easily say

1 litre of petrol in the UK is 118.9 pence (5.39 per gallon or US$10.72)

1 liter of petrol in the US is 105.8 cents (US$ 4.00 per gallon or 2.01)

So to adjust the figures

UK petrol would be 4.49 per US gallon

US petrol would be US$4.80 per UK gallon

So you can see that the UK government is really taking the ********* out of UK motorists and with the planned changes to road theft (ooops I meant ROAD TAX)

we're getting bent over every way possible!!

It's basically down to tax and VAT, yes you read correctly we get to pay 2 forms of tax on petrol

I have a friend who owns a garage (gas station) and he's got cards from his supplier so when someone starts on about the price of petrol he just hands them one of these

Basically it breaks down how much of the cost goes where

Every 10 of petrol he sells roughly 8 goes to the govrnment in taxes

My friend makes 4 pence profit per litre that he sells, like he says if it were any other product his mark up (profit) would be anywhere from 75-100%

Luckily for him he sells a heck of a lot of petrol as he has a very good site

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:wub: You know the people who restore 1:1 Tanks and military aircraft? I think there's a couple of shows on the Discovery channel...

Anyhow an amazing bunch of Guys. Some of them even have paid staff to hunt down rare WW2 hardware on their behalf. Some of my favourite shows in fact.

Nice, I mean it, nothing wrong with that, I make models of the same because I can't do what they do period. No contest there mate.

But just imagine if these type of Guys, who know our military history better than most, and as it seems they have... let's say a certain view of life, :o turned their attention, and of course a lot of their hard earned cash and valuable time to the rapid development of practical road going EVs.

Call them unmanned AFVs and put a 50cal with a night sight on them if you like Guys but please get on with it...

That would produce something really viable, call it "potent" if you like ;) in no time at all.

Do I have an extreme view? Maybe. I only mean that during a war anything that hurts our enemies should be used as a weapon.

The West not needing their oil anymore will certainly will do them a serious mischief.

Developed EVs would at least provide that. Now there's a weapon.

We can't even mention our enemies names yet alone criticsize any so called religion that kills in the name of God or any creed that just wants to behead you because you in their "culture" are regarded lower than a pig. Even that last sentence may be modded, I hope not. If it does serves me right.

If I sound crazy about this excuse me... for personal reasons my thoughts are in the sandpit at the moment. :D

However, as I am in the world and not stuck in the sandpit, I would love that to stop, bring all our boys home and have an EV that does over the ton with spare replacement battery packs in the boot. :D

Metered kerbside EV juicing points, maybe placed in street lights or similar would be nice as well.

Maybe I want too much... But I want.

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This is something I was working on a while ago in 3dsmax.

bike_frame10.jpg

The green discs are wheels of course, the pink disc is a heavy flywheel that doubles as a generator which charges the 2 switching battery packs. The battery pack not being charged powers an electric motor which keeps the heavy flywheel spinning. The flywheel powers the 'bike'. Pedals are there to initially spin up the flywheel and may be used to assist on a hill (We all need more exercise, or so the doctors keep telling us). The flywheel continues to rotate after the 'bike' is parked to continue charging the battery packs. Solar panel roof also assists with charging when the 'bike' is not being used. Onboard AC charger fits to a wall socket for even quicker charging.

Construction is similar to a bike frame with minimum weight in mind. Less weight = less effort to make it move and keep it moving. Body is replaceable polycarbonate for lightweight and weather sheilding.

Modern cars have lost touch with what the device is... a mode of easy transportation from point A to point B with the least amount of effort and cost.

I'm in the 'collecting parts' stage of construction.

Open minds will open up the future to renewable energy sources that are both cheap and safe. It's when the people with the big bank balances open their minds the world will change.

Cheers, Mark

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