Electric/Hybrid cars

[myother45isalesbaer]

This post is not really germaine to this site. But Nissian and Infiniti are going down this road.

Can anyone exlain the advantage of buying an electric or hybrid car? Our gas powered cars do pollute and add toxins to the environment. No argument from me on that one.

But electric and hybrids need electricity to run. This electricity is created by oil or coal burning large generators of electricity. Some are water powered, wind powered or nuc powered, but still toxic wastes are being made by most of these generating stations. Our power grid is so old it needs a complete overall that will cost billions. So what is the "high" with electric/hybrid cars. Its seems to me we are just trading one polluting gas burning device for one that does not pollute as much but the power companies still pollute and will do so in greater numbers as electric/hybrid cars become more popular.

Please explain to me where my logic is flawed. I am just not getting why I should get rid of my gas powered car to go buy an electric/hybrid one.

[wingFeather]

Your logic is not flawed. Either way there will be pollution. The advantage to electric is that more wealth stays within our nation, as we can make electricity here. If America switched to electric sooner... Detroit would look more like Dubai instead of selling houses for $500! Your quality of life would be better overall.

[The00Dustin]

I am concerned that more batteries will stay within our landfills too, laws don't make shadetree mechanics and DIY-ers properly dispose of oil, much less batteries.

EDIT: FYI, my understanding of electrical generation in Indiana is that there is a move from coal to coal gasification becaues it is more efficient and less polluting. However, much like diesels are rare in the US (and going away in Europe) in spite of the clean diesel technologies now available, "environmentalists" only know what the historical results of coal and diesel are, so they don't want them regardless (haters gonna hate). Regarding the quality of life statement, the more you pay in food, taxes, and utilities, the less you can spend on yourself, taxes are what covered the higher price tag on a lot of hybrids and still will continue to do so on a lot of electric cars, much like taxes pay to make e85 made from the most inefficient source (corn) cost as little as gasoline per mile, and one could argue that e85 makes food cost more since food is being used for fuel, so the only people who are going to see this gain in quality of life are the ones getting income selling corn for more than it should be worth, selling e85 for more than the market would otherwise allow, and selling these hybrid/electric cars. That's a small portion of the people, and even out of them, the low-level employees probably won't see much of it, so I don't see how Detriot could possibly look like Dubai unless the autmotive companies had been willing to make these investments on their own (although I'd rather not live in smog, and air quality in Indiana is not better from these new [and coming] plants yet, so I have mixed feelings about various epa things). Just thought I'd ramble, because quite frankly, we'd all be a lot better off if people didn't suck, but people do suck, so all those other "if people had done this" claims are about useless (though I have plenty of my own).

[myother45isalesbaer]

I agree with the batteries going into the waste dump as pollutants too. I don't agree 100% that life will be better with electric cars. It still seems to me we are trading one polluting machine for a large generating polluting power plant. Battery technology just does not seem to be up to the job yet. In my opinion, electrics are not the answer, at least not yet. Hydro, wind or solar may work, but nucs will not. The nucs have a problem with disposing of their waste products. There are many alternatives to generating electricity, but no one is looking at them as serious replacements for oil or coal. What angers me most about this issue is its always about the Benjamins.

[wingFeather]

Pollution will always be there (unless Mr. Fusion becomes a reality LOL). DO we want to be polluted & slaves, or polluted and enjoy life? The latter also having an option to end pollution if wind/solar/MR. Fusion come on board.

Oil versus batteries... The main difference I see it that right now, toxic used oil is worthless. There is nothing stopping someone from pouring it into the ground. But used energy cells can be turned in for cash. In California, and empty soda can is worth 5 cents. Consequently, we have armies of homeless who go around rummaging for the things to make a living. Contrast that to states who place little value on the cans... they end up in the Earth. So IMHO less batteries would make it into the ground than oil does now.

On the subject of E85, since it has been kicked to the curb, gas prices have gone up AND food prices have gone up. If it were a problem, food would be cheaper now. Also, the tax subsidies ended... yet our taxes didn't go down. So was it really the evil that people with oil interests made it out to be? It seemed to have no real effect on food, fuel or tax. More of a scapegoat.

Have you seen what our money is doing in China? Dubai? We ship so much money away, that others are playing with it. Reference the awesome Youtube videos of people in oil countries doing donuts in Ferraris like they are disposable. Reference how car companies are creating special luxury lines just for the Chinese market. That could be us, if we kept our money here, instead of becoming a banana republic. I don't know how to better explain it but hope that helps.

[Ilya]

If I ever sell my M, I only have one hybrid in mind. The Lexus CT200h. I'm so into that car. It's not fast, but it's a Lexus (so you know it's luxury) and it's Japanese (so you know it's generally speaking - reliable). Plus it gets +40mpg EPA in both city and highway, although someone I know averages closed to 50.

[The00Dustin]

Pollution will always be there (unless Mr. Fusion becomes a reality LOL). DO we want to be polluted & slaves, or polluted and enjoy life? The latter also having an option to end pollution if wind/solar/MR. Fusion come on board.

Each person has a different opinion of enjoying life and/or being slaves. Personally, I find freedom to be lacking more and more in ways that don't affect me to much, but it's not a good pattern. My point was that even if we made our own hybrids, the corporations and CEOs would keep the money, and it wouldn't help us at all. One could say capitalism is broken, since those videos are likely not from capitalist states, but capitalism / free market is based on supply and demand, so prices won't come down while people are buying things, smart phones shouldn't cost so much per month, and data isn't as expensive or lacking as the phone companies would have you believe, yet the rate stays that high because everyone will pay it (I would blame welfare since so many on welfare have such phones, but even more who aren't do, so that would be a scapegoat).

Oil versus batteries... The main difference I see it that right now, toxic used oil is worthless. There is nothing stopping someone from pouring it into the ground. But used energy cells can be turned in for cash. In California, and empty soda can is worth 5 cents. Consequently, we have armies of homeless who go around rummaging for the things to make a living. Contrast that to states who place little value on the cans... they end up in the Earth. So IMHO less batteries would make it into the ground than oil does now.

You pay higher taxes (or higher product prices) to have the homeless go around picking up the cans and bottles, and would pay the same for the fuel cells (just for the record, the cans and bottle rebates are paid for by a deposit, so only the people who throw them away get screwed there, and I'm OK with that, but I don't think the same system could work with a product that would need to have a much higher value to get returned and should get sold on the secondary market before it expires). Nothing is free, and the government forcing something to have value requires you to pony up the cash on the back end (in the case of the rebate, to pay for the recycling if it isn't a money maker [or even if it is and the right lobbyist was involved]). Recycling is possible in other states, on the value of the material, but recycling outlets are allowed to charge to accept something they can make money recycling instead of accepting it for free or paying you for it. One could again mistakenly blame capitalism for this, and government intervention could fix it, but not without more side effects as usual.

On the subject of E85, since it has been kicked to the curb, gas prices have gone up AND food prices have gone up. If it were a problem, food would be cheaper now. Also, the tax subsidies ended... yet our taxes didn't go down. So was it really the evil that people with oil interests made it out to be? It seemed to have no real effect on food, fuel or tax. More of a scapegoat.

I don't care what the oil companies say, their word is useless, gas prices are clearly only tied to oil prices while oil goes up and not while it comes back down, this cycle repeats. In the meantime, foreign entities are restricting production, US companies are letting refineries sit idle, and the US government plays a heavy hand in US production, a hand that is too often controlled by lobbyists and activists instead of logic, leading to a lack of safe drilling where drilling could be done safely and a lack of safety where drilling is done (think BP oil spill [they convinced the government a safety shut-off at the base wasn't needed]). Moreover, food prices are up because gas prices are up and none of this has to do with E85, plus the tax money that was subsidizing it still isn't in our pockets [although it won't be contributing to our debt anymore]). All of this makes conspiracy theory and small numbers (with E10 being the government mandated minimum even in Indiana now with E15 in some states, gas costs more because Ethanol costs more) irrelevant. That said, I'm not against ethanol or E85, I just believe we need to use a more efficient crop, like sugar for it. We buy oil from Venezuela, but we won't buy sugar from them. Really? Also, some may believe that will change when Chavez passes, and to them I say, right, just like Kim Jong Un is nothing like Kim Jong Il was, and just like Obama got rid of the Patriot act he so detested.

Have you seen what our money is doing in China? Dubai? We ship so much money away, that others are playing with it. Reference the awesome Youtube videos of people in oil countries doing donuts in Ferraris like they are disposable. Reference how car companies are creating special luxury lines just for the Chinese market. That could be us, if we kept our money here, instead of becoming a banana republic. I don't know how to better explain it but hope that helps.

I will assume you don't know what % of people in those other countries are living the life and what % of those people are poorer than the poorest of us (I don't know). More importantly, I will assume that you don't go out of your way (or to Lowes) to buy American when you can (I do, it seems impossible to get an American [or even not-China-] made metal bottle). Finally, I will assume that you don't have a problem with our minimum wages and labor unions (mind you I know blue collar workers who hate working for unions because they're not allowed to keep busy or work outside their narrow job scope, people who don't think money is everything and get satisfaction from accomplishment; I also know people who work as contractors as needed, in a scenario where the union actually makes sense, and I am by no means against labor unions that do). Regardless of whether or not my assumptions are correct, I should point out that I've always been against NAFTA, I'm totally for taxing imports from China, and also for not being the world police. All of these things would help, but in the meantime, manufacturing jobs are coming back to America as other countries like China start to see labor costs going up, and quite frankly, if more Americans would work instead of milking the various systems, we 'd probably all be a lot better off (so I think welfare is necessary, but broken, and I think tort reform is necessary, but will undoubtedly be implemented wrong if it ever comes to be [although why would costs currently used to insure against or pay for lawsuits be lowered when they can be converted to margin, and on the other side of that argument, why would people take big risks and losses over and over again to start new companies and build new products if they couldn't gain from them due to too much regulation {and you should know I'm for regulation of utilities}], and I think people will always get wronged by our laws, but attempts to fix those wrongs too often lead to worse laws).

However, this is all political discussion, some of it undoubtedly misguided. Moreover, political discussions are too often heated and people blindly believe far too much, so I prefer to stay out of them. That said, my point in all of this is that something as simple as making hybrid cars ourselves instead of following China wouldn't have drastically changed anything about our political or economical environment. On a side note, are you aware that Porsche made an electric car early in the last century and customers wouldn't buy it? Did you know that Chevrolet made electric vehicles in the early 90s? I don't know where the money came from for those (subsidies vs R&D), and I don't know whether people wouldn't buy them or whether big oil shut it down (with lobbying or patent purchasing), but you hear plenty of conspiracy theory about big oil. Those theories can usually have holes poked in them, though, for instance, say there was an engine many years ago that got 80 MPG and big oil bought the patents to keep it off the market. Patents expire and we still don't have that engine, I am GUESSING this is because customers want more power than that engine provided and/or because the added emission controls in the years after that would have brought it down in MPGs too. It could also be due to yet another conspiracy (assuming the first one existed), but how does who fix that without breaking something else?

[wingFeather]

Believe it or not, in the years 1899 to 1900, the electric horseless carriage outsold steam & gasoline vehicles!

I agree and disagree with many of your points. I applaud you for having thought about all of this stuff, either way.

[myother45isalesbaer]

Believe it or not, in the years 1899 to 1900, the electric horseless carriage outsold steam & gasoline vehicles!

I agree and disagree with many of your points. I applaud you for having thought about all of this stuff, either way.

And the first diesel ran on vegetable oil. There were no refineries back in those days. In a mere 100+ years we have made a mess of this planet and I have yet to hear a solid solution from anyone as to how to reverse the damage we have done. By the way, some very interesting comments by everyone.