I've just seen 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' and am wondering what other cars, if any, exist out there that run completely indendent of oil and have a reasonable max distance-per-charge. And by independent I mean 100% independent-- no Hybrids please.
2006-07-03 11:36:36 · 4 answers · asked by JEpoch 1 in Environment
Duh, you DO realize that much electricity is generated from oil, don't you? See http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html
Three percent of all US grid electrical production derives from the use of petroleum fuel; 17.9 percent comes from natural gas (extremely clean-burning -- ALMOST as good as straight hydrogen); and 49.8 percent is dependent on the combustion of coal (which can be made surprisingly clean, but -- despite the "clean coal" public relations program -- isn't).
Even solar and fuel cell vehicles rely on liquid oils for lubrication.
Oils are used in manufacturing the plastics upon which fuel-efficient vehicles depend. Petroleum-derived fuels are used to obtain the raw materials from the earth, to transport those raw materials, to process those raw materials into level-1 intermediate products, to transport those products to manufacturing facilities where they become level-2 intermediate products with the expenditure of further fuel energy.
After that (and any other intermediate transportation and manufacturing processes), petroleum-derived fuels are used to transport those components to assembly plants, to build the vehicle, and to transport the vehicle to a dealership.
The asphalt on which the vehicle will be operated is derived from petroleum oil, as is most of the material in the car's tires (and the tires of all the vehicles transporting it and its raw materials, etc).
There is no such thing as a vehicle that is COMPLETELY independent of oil.
2006-07-03 11:46:53 · answer #1 · answered by wireflight 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋
GM's ev1 are not completely independent of oil.
They are made of and use many materials and fluids made from petroleum. Also, you still have to make the electricity out of something, and in many places, some of the electricity in the grid is generated by burning petroleum products.
Depending on your definition of "reasonable", you will probably not find an electric car that is safe on the highway that meets this criteria. Current battery technology just is not good enough. Thats why we have hybrids. The motor is fully electric but we store the energy in the fuel rather than in batteries.
2006-07-03 18:45:35 · answer #2 · answered by enginerd 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They modify hybrids to run off pure electricity now.
There are plenty of golf-carts running on batterries.
by the way, you realize that electricity has to be generated somehow?
2006-07-03 18:39:03 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
look to the bicycle
2006-07-03 18:41:19 · answer #4 · answered by Report Abuse 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋