so... 50 k cost of this vehicle how much you save....

 

Checkout my post on the first page of this thread.

 

I agree with You 100% . . . I would absolutly love to see more public transportation, the idea of expanding freeways etc. is crazy. But I think that transitioning to enviromentally friendly cars, can help transitions the publics attention on the serious need of mass public trasit. I see electric cars etc. as a step towards community solutions for more viable transportation.

+1 for Mass Transit!

 

I agree for mass transit than improve the freeways....... I work with the mass transit that means I got secured work but again eve we installed electric in our cars still theres a waste that come out... how about acid air....

 

xB for $70K? Why Teslas are only $100K and do 0-60 in 4 seconds.

 

My Crown Vic and my xB together were just over $30k, and the rodents posterior I give about electric cars is free!

Al Gore made a movie and now the world is going to end.

Know what though? It's not going to end tomorrow. So the future generations are screwed... unless you're Hindu, relax... you won't be back to see it happen. When the oil runs out, we'll think of something. Chances are we already have a product that will run in combustions engines (and I don't mean that E-85 crap), that is totally man made, but hasn't been released yet, because someone is waiting to cash in. I wish I was him. Watch... someone's going to release a $10k electric that gets 3000 miles a charge and never goes bad on Tuesday. On Wednesday a meteor is going to strike the planet.

What it all comes down to is this: Today was a beautiful day and I went for a nice ride in the box with the windows down.

 

I am in the process of doing a $13K electric conversion on my toyota yaris with parts all bought online. The Yaris shares many of the same parts as the XA and XB and has the same motor and transmission. You can se pictures of the electric motor mated to the transmission bere:

www.electricyaris.com

 

The only proven hybrid technology according to the EPA is "hydraulic hybrid" as touted by their website http://www.epa.gov/otaq/technology/r...velopments.htm
A lot of their research has been on retrofitting production automobiles and the sweet advantage , over improved economy and reduced emissions, is an increase of 30% in Acceleration!!! Estimated additional production cost to price of vehicle is $600 as estimated by the EPA!! With the Scion line being FWD there should be no trouble adding live transaxel to rear with the hydraulics and get a great boost from lost kinetic energy lost during braking. This is THE technology nobody is talking about because no additional fuel is needed, Hydrogen namely, and is very inexpensive in the long run during the life of the car (no batteries or associated electronic controls to replace/breakdown). In the event of a failure the car will operate very close to normal.

 

Hydraulic hybrid is fine and well for a delivery vehicle but until they figure out how to make the things quieter we're probably better off with normal hybrids or better yet plug in hybrids.

Or just a big fat gasoline tax increase and let the marketplace solve the problem. Nobody wants it, it would be political suicide for any politician to propose, but its what would do the trick. If it was accompanied by an increase in the standard deduction to make the tax change revenue-neutral I'd be all for it.

 

I agree on plug-in hybrids provided the source power (production plant) is nuclear to reduce additional demands created by plug-in vehicle fueling. Face it, nuclear power has been used in Navy propulsion for over 35yrs now, it's safe. Yes the nuclear waste still has to be delt with and the process for safe disposal will affect us somehow. As far as the noise encountered with hydraulic hybrid systems what is so different than some of the exhaust system noise already being tolerated (not to mention some of what passes for "powerful" subwoofer configurations? All systems have a trade-off and shifting the demand to power plants for recharging or dealing with toxins in battery packs seems more of a hazard than some noise problems.
In Louisiana the cost per gallon for gas includes 38 cents state and federal taxes, so at $2.02 per gallon the actual cost is $1.64 per gallon. Big oil makes billions per quarter in profits, that's why their in buisness, and playing politics with taxes at the pump and rebating / deducting to neutrality only increases the tax revenues to the politicians, period.

 

That's similar to what I say to the gas people too. Where do you think the gas comes from? They just plop these filling stations on a corner and the gas percolates from beneath? Darn! Why didn't I put my house there!

Somewhere around 60% and growing of all oil is imported into this country. And that oil has to be processed. And thet processing takes a bunch of energy.

Here are 2 quotes from the California Energy Commission Petroleum
Industry Profile
available at http://www.energy.ca.gov/pier/iaw/industry/petro.html

Energy Use
Petroleum extraction is an extremely energy intensive process, which
uses about 3,700GWh of electricity yearly this is about 1.5% of all
electricity consumed by the state. This is a big percentage when one
considers that this consumption is for petroleum extraction alone and
does not include the electricity used by petroleum refineries.

Petroleum refining is the number one consumer of energy in California's
manufacturing sector. In 1997, the industry consumed 7,266 million KWh
of electricity and 1,061 million Therms of natural gas. This
consumption amounted to 15 and 28 percent of the state's total
manufacturing sector's electrical and natural gas consumption
respectively.

Let's also not forget that our military (where most of your tax dollars goes) is to protect our oil resources AND to protect other countries as well. We protect Chinese oil tankers because an attack on ANY oil tanker or facility would devistate the oil industry.

 

The 55k price tag is also just for the first 10 or so vehicles and they are targeting audiences like SCE (southern california edison) who is doing testing on electric vehicles but they were all leased (toyota rav4 ev) so they are slowly losing them back to Toyota since there is not clause to buy them.

The price will come down on the next batch of models just like the Teslas. ACP is a R&D firm first. They have some great engineers at that company. Most car manufacturers (GM, Volvo, etc) and research universities turn to ACP for their electric drivetrain research. In fact one of the lead engineers for the EV1 was the founder of ACP.

Battery technology is getting better and better. Companies like A123 has an extremely safe LiIon battery that you don't have to worry about exploding and will last a very long time though it still costs alot. Firefly Energy (a spin off of Caterpillar) is designing low cost graphite foam lead acid batteries that are light weight, last longer, more environmentally friendly and are cheap to produce. Don't hold as much energy as LiIon but the $/kWh should be impressive. They should begin manufacturing next year. They would be a great replacement for your regular starting battery in your car because they are much lighter for about the same cost!

If no car company has a reasonably priced electric car (or a plug in hybrid that goes at least 30 miles) in the next year or two I plan to convert my xB to electric like electricyaris is doing.

 

what channel is "Who Killed The Electric Car" on? station i mean...

 

Instead of debating how electric cars are good and bad, why don't use you flippin minds to come up with something better or improve upon what's out there now. The fact is, when you sit there and say "..its pointless" or "...it'll never happen" your being so skeptical and unimaginative it's really sad! It's when you make comments like that. it truly makes you a "Consumer".

Instead of saying "it doesn't do this" or "it doesn't do that"; why don't you ask WHY! "why doesn't go further than 100miles?" "-well it's the batteries, oh, really! well hey how can i change that??!"

"-Changing slowly, is better than standing still"



-end rant

 

It is appropriate that they used an xB for this. If you take the letters of "toyota scion" and re-arrange them, you can get

A CITY NO SOOT

among many other combinations.

 

most car companies dont want to produce Hybrids.. its a law that every company has to produce every so many (X) vehicles a year.. imagine all the money they'd have to put it in it.. then all the money they'd have train new technicians, besides that.. after your warranty is up with the dealership, who do you take your car to get fixed?

until they figure a way to make a car run on perpetual motion.. im sticking to gas.. i save more money then my previous vehicle.. went from 7/8 MPG to 30/32 imagine the savings there..

 

Ok.. here's the deal the engine that we used at XA,XB are 1400 cc and basically this engine has been used at hybrids... I think the xa and xb can be converted to hybrid cars.. whatyou guy recommend....

 

1500cc actually.

 

ooops... you are right...

 

Ok here's an even more reasonable approach at least for the time being would be to switch to diesels which get better mileage in the first place and can run on Vegetable oil, used cooking oil, animal fat, and many other completely renewable resource. You could even make it a hybrid if you're afraid you'll run out of grease to cook your french fries http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html