"*sigh* Saving the environment is proving to be far too expensive."

well, NOT saving it will cost the ultimate price

Okay, I want to point out the problems with the electric car. It will have consumed 2x as much ENERGY as a hummer after 100,000 miles.

Despite the fact that it doesn't consume gas, it still takes energy to make the electricity, which is likely to come from coal. Since you have more energy conversions (sun-plant-fuel-kinetic-electricity) than gas (sun-plant-fuel), it is more efficient with energy in the driving process.

second of all, the process of making the batteries requires 50+ lbs of nickel or lithium, which requires massive amounts of energy to mine for and refine into a usable substance.

The unfortunate reality is that electric cars will only save you money, and that only happens if very few people use it and don't drain the supply of energy.

Someone tell me if Al Gore is weeping right now at the world's stupidity.

I'm not too worried. 50K isn't much for a car, at least for us up here it isn't (I'm going to save 12K by buying my new vehicle south of the 49th, and this whole "cheap vehicle" thing kicks ass!).

My crappy old digital camera was $400 a few years ago, and now I've bought an infinitesimally better waterproof/dropproof/everythingproof one for that same price. I imagine electric car technology will evolve in a similar manner.

And saving the environment by reducing emissions can be a bunch cheaper and easier than buying a 50K car - it's called a bicycle! Besides, not saving the environment will cost us the planet, which is IMHO worth more than 50K.

Um, here on Plime that kind of forum behavior is discouraged. Being the first to post is irrelevant, what matters is contributing something intelligent to the discussion.


Or the energy could come from nuclear power... that doesn't pollute. Yes, mining and refining it requires energy, but not nearly as much as it can produce. I'd say the same about using base metals for batteries. When we power mines with clean energy (this isn't far at all from realization), then it will become economic and practical for more people to drive electric cars.

Please don't tell me you honestly think our planet would be better off if everyone drove Hummers.

I'd buy it! I don't have a vehicle (mr. monkey does), and with awesome new bicycle I don't need one.

50K for a car will seem trivial in a decade or two when rising sea levels displace over half of Earth's population, anyway.

$50k is the same price one would pay for a nice luxury vehicle. If given $50k, I think ppl would be more inclined to buy a Lexus or Mercedes instead of this electric vehicle. i think in order for 'green' to be attractive it needs to come at a cheaper price so the masses can afford it and therefore actually make an impact on the environment.

i would buy a electric vehicle in a heartbeat if it was closer to $25k. But that's the irony. 'Green' is the trend, but to me, it seems like it's all talk. If corporate America or the Federal Govt. was really serious about the environment, they would subsidize the technology (like electric vehicles) to make it more affordable.

But they won't because oil companies and the auto industry are lining the pockets of our politicians with 'green'.

the point of an electric vehicle is it limits the costs to the consumer because instead of paying $5 a gallon (or more) for gas they're paying cents for electricity. the brunt of the cost is put upon someone else - thus freeing the consumer to have more disposable income which in turn feeds the economy.

Sources? If you are going by that stupid Hummer vs. a Prius article, it's been disproven over and over. Besides, it was based on a Hummer lasting, I believe 396,000 miles compared to about 100,000 for the Prius. And before you begin, all built Prius' have a less than 1% failure rate on the battery, for the life of the car, they are recycleable, and no, they don't cost $10,000.00 to replace.

cheeselog, be patient. More and more car companies are developing alternatives. The prices will come down as they produce more, thus lowering the cost to manufacture. Ten years from now, we will have a slew of cool cars getting 100mpg and better. at reasonable prices.

The way dollar falls lately, very soon that 50k will not be that much at all.
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You know someone was going to post this sooner or later:

<a href='http://www.plime.com/redir.p?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw' class='plime' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'><b>flash video</b></a>

talkin' about inflation. :)

check out the post WWII inflation of Europe:


My grandfather told this story: he got his monthly salary at 4 pm and headed home, when he arrived, the wallet worthed more than the money inside. it was at 6 pm.

Wait a tick, didn't somebody say something about it looking normal?

NOT normal looking!

I think the worst inflation ever was this:
"Hungary went through its worst inflation in modern history in 1945-46. Before 1945, the highest denomination was 1,000 pengő. By the end of 1945, it was 10,000,000 pengő. The highest denomination in mid-1946 was 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengő. The rate of inflation was 4.19 quintillion (4.19 x 10^18) percent. A special currency the adópengő - or tax pengő - was created for tax and postal payments. The value of the adópengő was adjusted each day, by radio announcement. On January 1, 1946 one adópengő equaled one pengő. By late July, one adópengő equaled 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 2×10^21pengő. When the pengo was replaced in August 1946 by the forint, the total value of all Hungarian banknotes in circulation amounted to one-thousandth of one US cent."

People got salary daily, so that they could actually buy something. Later in the inflation even this wasn't enough. The middle class completely vanished.

seems like you've got some hungarian connection too. (at least according to your nickname)

yes, that happened to my hungarian grandfather

You could probably take the printed money and grind it into pulp and it would be worth more.

Yeah, cause there's a huge market for money pulp.

Actually, you could sell it back to the government so they could print more money on it. You could make a killing that way.

that's the sut. the suv looks like a normal compact suv.

Sorry about the "first" thing. I thought I editted that out. Now I agree that hummers are not the answer to global warming, but I am saying that simply transfering our energy dependency to electricity doesn't solve any problems. If anything, it compounds them. People need to buy fuel efficient, non-hybrid, cheap cars, so that they don't use much energy to make, and not much to run either.

Sooner or later I think we will all be driving electric cars.