The Tesla Roadster

[munterk6]

http://stuff.co.nz/4461786a6000.html

I want one!!!!! checkout the accelaration, 0-100kmh in 3.9 secs....wow!!!!
And sooooooo clean n green too.
pricetag sorta puts me off a bit tho lol!

[Patar]

http://stuff.co.nz/4461786a6000.html

I want one!!!!! checkout the accelaration, 0-100kmh in 3.9 secs....wow!!!!
And sooooooo clean n green too.
pricetag sorta puts me off a bit tho lol!

why do people buy into this whole clean and green image of alternative fuels?
All it does is shift the source of the pollution away from your tailpipe.

Bio-fuels are a joke unless made out of WVO's as atm rainforest is being felled to make room for bio plantations (WTF, seriously).

Electric cars will be plugged in at the end of the day when everyone comes home from work and hence further increasing peak demand. (for those who don't know power generators have to produce to peak capacity 24/7 as it is uneconomical to try vary generation, exception is hydro)
The only way electric cars can be good is if they are powered by carbon neutral and renewable energy sources (which are the minority around the world)


No idea where I was going with that.
/endrant

[Coyote]

The clean green image electric cars have is deceptive. Like bio fuels. As it stands right now, though future technologies could and hopefully will change this, petrol is still the most efficient and cleanest form of energy we've got.

The government just wants in to seem green. It's like the whole bio fuels thing going on in other countries. With all the government incentives and rising market for producing bio fuel, rain forests are being chopped down and people aren't getting food.

Though that car is pretty cool.

[marty]

hydro IS carbon neutral/renewable.

so is wind.

so is solar.

so is nuclear

so is power pinched from the office

[marty]

and the hybrid thing is shit for most of NZ - a Prius from AK-WN uses as much petrol as my Toyota Echo, and more fuel than a new euro sub 1.5l diesel

[Patar]

hydro IS carbon neutral/renewable.

so is wind.

so is solar.

so is nuclear

so is power pinched from the office

when did i say it wasn't?
I said hydro could vary their output depending on demand...

[xwhatsit]

Electric cars are good. Centralisation of the power supply is a good thing. Vast inefficiencies in converting oil to petrol, transporting it huge distances and then storing it. Electricity, even when it's from oil or coal, is a more efficient way to do it -- and you're not spreading emissions and other shit around towns and suburbs and nice countrysides. Then, as Marty says, you've got nice carbon-neutral ways to make electricity like hydro and solar and wind and chopping open atoms.

Batteries are going to jump ahead in leaps and bounds over the next decade, it's only going to get better.

[munterk6]

uh-oh...what the hell have I started???

[marty]

The only way electric cars can be good is if they are powered by carbon neutral and renewable energy sources (which are the minority around the world)


No idea where I was going with that.
/endrant

it was how i read it.

[munterk6]

http://jmccanneyscience.com/

Anyone interested in the science of the electric universe we all live in, checkout Prof. James McCanney. He is an Astronomy major and a brilliant man in my opinion. Have a look at his work regarding Velikovsky and Nikola Tesla and also his Weather page....theres stuff there that is leading edge science today, just as it was a century ago with Tesla breaking new ground.
Before you all laugh and take the piss, did ya know that Tesla was the inventor of the Alternating Current? Yes folks, we have AC electricity thanks to Tesla.
So go have a look and he has a weekly radio show(Thursday nites) you can download and listen to with some great info ya just would never hear about in the mainstream news media.

[Skunk]

How clean and green is the manufacture and disposal of the batteries these electric and hybrid cars use?

[SlashWylde]

hydro IS carbon neutral/renewable.

so is wind.

so is solar.

so is nuclear

so is power pinched from the office

Not when you take into account the fossil fuels burned to build each of these systems. You have to look at an energy source as a whole, from construction right through its life to the point of decommission.

In essence, no system of energy conversion/power generation is totally carbon neutral.

Going back a step, one is assuming that global warming is anthropogenic, and therefore that CO2 emissions/carbon foot-prints etc are of concern. There is still some debate concerning this point.

[SlashWylde]

petrol is still the most efficient and cleanest form of energy we've got.

No it's not. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and convert it to a form usable in an internal combustion engine. IC engines are only about 20% to 37% efficient.

As for clean, there are a host of nasty by-products of combustion for petrol and diesel, such as Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Monoxide, Sulphur Dioxide.

Electric vehicles are more efficient, but I'd have to do some research to find a comparison with appropriate figures.

[Coyote]

uh-oh...what the hell have I started???

You shit stirrer!

Electric powered vehicles are cool. Just look a R/C cars. Love their high revving whirr. Pretty keen on starting an electric powered bucket racer project. And another silly idea, get a joystick and some vacuum cleaner motors and rig them up onto a computer desk chair. Don't think I need to explain that further

Good example of the awesome electric motor whirr: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRpMV-Gf0hA

[Coyote]

No it's not. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and convert it to a form usable in an internal combustion engine. IC engines are only about 20% to 37% efficient.

As for clean, there are a host of nasty by-products of combustion for petrol and diesel, such as Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Monoxide, Sulphur Dioxide.

Electric vehicles are more efficient, but I'd have to do some research to find a comparison with appropriate figures.

At this stage fossil fuels are the best we've got, until a massive infrastructure for a particular alternative is created and more issues, like battery technology, are sorted. Plus Electric powered vehicles in a place like America is just switching emissions from car exhausts to emissions from power plants. A place like New Zealand may make more sense with all our hydro power. But then there's the extra strain of a fleet of cars hooking into our decrepit power grid that only just powers the country as it is.

I'm keen on electric powered vehicles. Most hybrids are a bit of a joke like the Lexus SUV's, and crops are too unrealistic for bio fuels though making fuel from other sources like tree bark may prove themselves to be better.

Maybe at home you'd plug your electric car into one of these: http://www.turby.nl/ Looks like a good idea, make ourselves less reliant on power companies that constantly bump up prices and continue using estimates instead of actual meter reading.