<VV> RE: electric vehicles no corvair (on my soap box)

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

An FC retrofitted with electric is not the best test bed for the kind of ec
onomy or range you can get from an all electric vehicle.  Of course, you 
probably need a commercial vehicle of some sort to haul its own huge battery pack 
around but there are better choices.  If you had a more aerodynamic vehicle, the 
range and economy of the vehicle would go way up.  To be truly practical, 
battery technology must improve significantly as well.

As far as finding a clean source of electricity, (translated as non-fossil) 
we have probably tapped most of the usable hydroelectric sites.  That pretty 
much leaves nuclear.  I realize that we have a political environment in the USA 
where it is virtually impossible to build a cost effective nuke plant but that 
may change as the cost of fossil fuels continue to skyrocket.  Right now the 
anti nuke nuts can shout down pretty much anyone.  When we start paying 2 or 3 
times what we pay today for fossil fuels and eventually are faced with real 
shortages instead of trumped up shortages, the general population will start 
shouting down the anti nuke PACs.  We should be developing controllable fusion 
capability instead of relying on fission.  This would pretty much solve the 
"nuclear waste disposal" issue that is often raised as an issue.

By the way, technically speaking, the Sparrow is a motorcycle.  Corbin 
designed it with 3 wheels specifically so they could call it a cycle and avoid all 
of the safety requirements the government requires for cars.  Corbin is a 
company in the motorcycle aftermarket industry.  I used to work for a company that 
was a contender as supplier for the motor and controller for the Sparrow.  I 
left the company before the decision was made but I heard that Corbin went with 
a less efficient technology for lower cost.  Such is life.

I will get off the soap box now.

Doc
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 8/21/2005 2:57:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 17:53:32 -0400
> From: "Steven R. Marti" <srmarti at netzero.net>
> Subject: <VV> RE: electric vehicles no corvair
> To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID: <AABBST79DARA9HTA at smtpout01.nyc.untd.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="windows-1250"
> 
> One of the problems I see with full electric vehicles is range.  Hybrids can 
> fix this.  Frankly I don't think their performance is quite good enough. 
> Seems like a similar size cars with an efficient diesel can still beat the 
> hybrid on the highway.  
> 
> An interesting electric was the single seat sparrow by Corbin motors.  I 
> thought about it until I took a good look at the numbers.  If everything worked 
> just right I might have been able to commute to work and back with little 
> margin.  Forget about side trip on the way home or battery performance loss in 
> colder climates.
> <snip>
> Doesn't make environmental sense to me unless there's a clean electricity 
> source. Then a lot of ideas can make more sense.  Hydrogen and fuel cells for 
> example.  Instruments on the west coast are detecting pollutants from coal 
> consumption in China so having the pollution coming from the power plants and 
> not the cars isn't really fixing anything.  Everyone is downwind of someone 
> else.
> 
> If you want a hobby and like to experiment go for it.  <snip>
> 
> Steve