The electric car - it disappeared.......who do you think was responsible?

Question

many car companies produced an electric car that ran on electricity, you could charge it anywhere there was an outlet, it was fast, efficient, produced NO emmissions, but it disappeared. who was responsible?

i wrote back SAYS ME, and it's obvious that he's the ignorant one, not me.

Answer 1

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The most damning piece of evidence in this controversy is the suppression of the NIMH battery.
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This battery was developed by a small Michigan research company. GM invested in this technology, and the NIMH battery was used in the two most successful electric cars built to date: GM's EV1 and the Toyota RAV4 EV.
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So what happened? After California gave in to industry pressure and scrapped their electric car mandate, nearly all of the electric cars on the road were crushed, and GM sold the patents for NIMH batteries to Chevron and Texaco.
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A company named Cobasys was formed by the oil companies to control the patents. Cobasys sued Toyota and others to stop production of the large-size NIMH batteries used by electric vehicles.
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So how good are these batteries? Good enough to provide at least 200-mile ranges to electric cars. And they are durable. There are a few Toyota RAV 4 EVs still on the road, with the original batteries still installed. Many of these batteries have over 100,000 miles on them, with no failures.
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Cobasys makes it very, very difficult for anybody to manufacture large-size NIMH batteries. This means they are giving up markets for things like automotive starter batteries, motorized wheelchairs, golf carts, marine batteries, etc.
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Bear in mind that these are very, very good batteries, so NIMHs could dominate all of those markets if large-size NIMHs were sold. Somebody over there is VERY afraid of electric vehicles.
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Incidentally, it doesn't matter that electric plants burn coal. Electric vehicles are several times more efficient than gas vehicles - this means more miles on the same amount of energy - therefore, less pollution per mile, no matter WHAT is burned at the plant. Plus, newer coal plants burn fuel at 85% efficiency, compared with the sub-25% efficiency you burn fuel in your car.
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And EVs are the only vehicles to fuel by wire - the grid is 95% efficient. Compare this with the huge infrastructure that trucks gasoline to thousands of gas stations. The price of that infrastructure is built into the cost of gasoline!
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Answer 2

Perhaps you'll find the answer to your question by viewing the documentary movie "Who Killed The Electric Car?"

GM, Ford & Toyota all had Electric cars in the mid '90's & there are still some Ford & Toyota's on the road.

Also visit http://www.teslamotors.com

psst: I think 'somebody' (SAYS ME) owes you an appology.
You are NOT the 'ignorant twit'

Answer 3

The electric car has numerous engineering issues that we have not (yet) developed the technology to solve. This is mostly because we don't really need to yet, due to the fact that there are still billions of barrels of oil underground which are still cheap to remove and hugely profitable. (Remember mother is the necessity of invention) For starters the car needs to be very light and have a huge battery to have decent range. This is the first engineering issue on the car is it’s battery.

My sub compact car carries 14 gallons of fuel and gets 30+ miles per gallon that means that I can drive my car well over 350 miles between refueling. Gas weighs weighs 5.85 pounds per gallon so my car carries an extra 80 pounds when fully loaded. It loses this weight as it burns it off. Electric cars charge their batteries by changing the chemicals inside the battery so that they can carry extra electrons. Electrons weigh almost nothing so a fully charged 100lb Toyota Prius battery might weigh a few extra grams and that’s a high estimate. It loses some efficiency because it doesn’t lose any weight as power is lost. Additionally a Toyota prius can only drive like 40 miles at 30 miles per hour using battery power which is why on the highway a prius gets less mpgs because on the highway it uses its gas engine for power. Using the prius battery as a bench mark an electric car would need to carry 500 pounds of batteries to be capable in city driving for a highway trip you are looking at over half a ton to have any useable range which in the USofA is like 300 miles or more between refuelings.

Next you need to analyze how much time you spend refueling your car it takes 20 minutes if the pay at the pump is broken and there is only one person working behind the counter filing their nails in between customers. However charging a cell phone battery takes several hours and can be done while driving or sleeping. However if you are on the highway you don’t want to wait hours to charge your car this problem could be solved by inter changeable batteries but more issues there how do we get all car manufacturers to utilize the same battery when we cant even decide on the best high definition dvd format.

Using a larger battery gives more range but it adds weight and requires a more robust frame until we have nano-technology capacitors produced on a large scale which would allow for quick charging an unliminted number of cycles and great power density the electric car is little more than a curiosity. There is no good way to store the amounts of power that a car needs and have it recharge quickly and not weaken over time (rechargeable batteries when fully charged and drained are only good for a thousand cycles).

Lightweight cars have a cheap feel to them they don’t feel strong and secure this is a big reason why people buy suburbans instead of caravans the caravan is a safe car no doubt but the suburban is big heavy, and strong looking while the caravan is more like a car in look and feel. Americans as a people like things that look like they are tough. This might also be why we like jeans so much they are rugged. Small light weight electric cars would be like tin cans if every one had one then this would not be a problem but again physics comes into play and the much more massive cars on the road would hit these electric cars destroying them and their occoupants very easily.

Power plants would become vastly more efficient with electric cars because power plants have to ramp up and lower production on a day night cycle because of the different usage. This ramping up and slowing down of production wastes tons of energy think accelerating and breaking in city driving just lost energy to get moving or stop. Electric cars would allow these power plants to run continuously like highway driving and at peak efficiency by charging at night a definite plus in addition coal burning power plants are much more efficient than cars as far as power produced to emissions give off is concerned. If our country was heavily nuclear like France we would produce no emissions what so ever but three mile island destroyed that dream.

The electric car has some nice perks but in a big country like America they are just not suited for everyday life. Until the need arises and the technology comes around the electric car will remain unpractical. So if your going to blame something blame the engineers for not spending their time on a product that had very little need until just reciently.

Answer 4

please stop you are perpetuating another myth - if automakers could sell an electric car that people would buy at a profit they would be in every showroom

the consumer will not put up with the range limitations - performance - cost

and where do you think all this extra power is going to come from ? here in Texas we are having a little battle over the 12 new COAL FIRED power plants the utilities are wanting to build (we do need the power soon we will be in a brownout cycle ) now add a few MILLION electric cars to the mix

the same ignorant twit remark - except i recognize his right to be ignorant ( lol )

Answer 5

Produced no emissions? That's a fallacy many people have about electrical power. The truth is that electricity has to be produced somehow, somewhere -- often by burning coal.

You may not see any emissions when you use electrical power... that's only because the emissions were already produced, somewhere else.

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Edit: Whoever gave my answer a thumbs down is an ignorant twit with his hand in the sand.

Answer 6

General Motors refused to sell the cars when the leases were up and they had them destroyed.

Now we need them.

Answer 7

BIG OIL Buddy those things did not use any gas or diesel why else would they be gotten rid of.

Answer 8

My top three guesses are:
General Motors
Halliburton
Exxon/Mobil