Why don't we just switch to electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars?

Question

Thus leaving all of the Arab countries with all of their useless muck?

Answer 1

electrics are still expensive, as is hydrogen, and hydrogen is highly explosive. also, hydrogen is not readily available.

just realized i'd forgotten the oil companies....

Answer 2

The car companies have billions invested in the internal combustion engine. With a little tweaking they can make it more powerful or smaller or whatever consumers want. Mass producing fuel cells or even electric motors would cost many billions more for all the retooling that would be needed on the production line. That's a lucky thing actually. Our electric grid hasn't changed much in the last 60 years. Its the same technology, just a little bigger. To move the energy needed to power only 10% or less of the vehicles in the country would burn it out. Look what one little problem did to the east coast a couple years ago- shut the power down in most of the north east.

Answer 3

Well for one thing oil companies don't want that even if they say they are for alternative fuels. Even if we switched to electric or hydrogen they both pollute. Where does electric power come from, burning coal and solar power is expensive and requires lots of up keep. Wind can help but that ain't cheap and people don't like those things on their lawn. Hydrogen doesn't work ether because hydrogen is refined from natural gas which cause lots of pollution. The good thing with that is North America has over 80% of the worlds natural gas so we would be filthy rich. Also who is going to repair hydrogen cars and who can afford them besides bill gates.

Answer 4

Let's think about it. The federal government made 77 billion dollars taxing gas in , ExxonMobil ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips made a combined profit of 66 billion in 2006.

An electric car? The cost for operating one would be about 1 to 2 cents per mile. Hmm...So that would be about 20 dollars in electricity give or take 5 dollars per month. Do you realize how much money you would save never having to buy gasoline? The cost to convert yourself could be 6 to 8 thousand if you did your own research or 20 thousand or so professionally done. It would pay for itself in about 2-3 years doing it yourself.

The bottom line? It is too cheap to run a car on electricity instead of gasoline. But who would want a car like that?
And as for fuel cell vehicles you need to look up a guy named Joseph Romm, he wrote the book The Hype About Hydrogen.

Answer 5

switching to electric cars would make sense even if the power for recharging comes from a coal fired plant. by the way, the coal fired power plants are cleaner than you think. hydrogen is a clean burning fuel, however the cost factor is high. battery technology has improved. if you are concerned about pollution, there is an air powerd car you might like.

Answer 6

It all comes down to money and greed. In Government and in big business. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Plus with these oil companies making millions a minute! They can silence almost anybody, one way or another. If the average american in his garage developed a motor that ran on water, rather than giving the technology to the masses, I'm sure he'd take that offer from the UNNAMED groups. So again, greed wins!

Answer 7

The multinational oil companies wouldn't have it. I know for one the US federal government bends over backwards for Big Oil's cash.

Answer 8

What? And not have to buy gas!? Then where would our corrupt politicians get their money from??