I've always wanted to buy a hybrid car. But now I want to compare let's say the Toyota Prius to a full electric car. If I can find a good full electric car that's at a good price, I'd get it. Does anyone know any cars or good websites that have sedan plug-in electric cars that cost pretty close to a gasoline car. I know that there is the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt, which are pretty cool. They're pretty expensive though. Thanks.

With the emphasis on saving money with not spending as much on gas…any idea how much electricity these electric cars will be eating up to charge.

The endurance of electric cars is soon to receive a timely boost. One California company unveiled a solution — a prototype energy station that swaps electric vehicles’ empty batteries for fully charged ones. The Better Place Company hopes such networks would replace existing conventional gas stations sometime in the near future. [Yoav Heichal, Chief Engineer, Better Place]: “A switch station is actually a gas station for electric vehicles. But it’s clean because you’re using the energy from …

A lot of Energy is lost, with each conversion. I mean that the more steps you take, then the more energy will be needed to drive the conversion process? Also producing more CO2. This link has (plausible, alarming)FIGURES for waste at each step. His idea: producing fuel oil by reacting hydrogen with coal (hydrocracking) would be much less wasteful, than liquifying the hydrogen, and using it as a fuel. Or converting it to electricity , and charging electric cars with it.

http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/hydrogen.htm

Compressed air might be more practical than batteries, since the volume increases faster than the weght. The article doesn't discuss the energy lost compressing air, I think it'd be at least as much as charging a battery. but the tank wouldn't cost as much ,wear out as fast, be so affected by cold, and not a toxic mess.
The article discusses using waste heat from an electricity – generating power plant, to increase hydrogen electrolisis efficiency to 50%. also, the waste heat would be a big saving on the "hydrocracking" process.
The alternative to finding a practical method of powering our civilisation is to wait for most people to die, and then there will be enough land for the remainder to become subsistence farmers. It seems obvious to me that hydrogen and batteries will never be practical. the article explains it well.
i agree about drilling ANWR, and using nuclear power. Imagine the oil that the navy has saved, with nuclear powered ships. Those nuclear aircraft carriers only need to refueled once in their lifetime. I disagree about the CO2 hazards, and think it'd be a real shame to let AGW, or the fantasy of hydrogen fuel distract us.

I’m just curious, why do we even attempt to make electric cars like the Chevy Volt. Almost all of our power grid is ran by gasoline powered turbines i don’t really see the plus to even inventing them we’re just using gas indirectly. And don’t tell me solar and wind power can solve our problems, because it can’t.

I have an issue with why so many of the electric cars that are available today (ie. zapworld.com, aptera.com) look so bad (aesthetically). Why wouldn't they make cars that look even a little more normal but get close or even a little less miles per charge than the ones they currently have available. I would think that more people would buy them and in turn help our environment, I mean isn't that the goal. Is there some sort of conspiracy, that is the only explanation I can come up with. I know that people can build their own or do a conversion, but they don't come close to what production manufactures can do.

Oil is headed to 0 a barrel and gas will be a gallon and diesel will be a gallon, The electric cars are coming and it will cost the equivalent of 6 cents a gallon to charge them up, Nissan, Chevy, Toyota and many more car builders have plans to start selling them in 2010, thats a year and a half from now. Subaru has developed a car that charges in a few hours and will go 150 miles per charge. Why buy a gas burner?

I have a debate on the subject of electric cars and i would like to know how often they need charged.

because i’m thinking about in the future, converting one of the cars that my parents already own and its an automatic. does it have to be manual? or can i get one of those motors that don’t have a transmission like the one in the tesla roadster? not one of those cheap ones that only reach 80 km/h, i mean the ones that can reach highway speed on one gear.

well, here are a few questions that i have.

do electric cars have to be manual? or can they be automatic?
can i convert the transmission to manual? keep in mind that the gear selector is on the steering column.
how much is it to get an electric motor that doesn’t need a transmission?

and last question, which option you go with if you were doing a conversion yourself? (money is not an issue)

thanks

We are forcing GM into bankruptcy. So, let's encourage the Gov't to FORCE GM to start Making Electric Cars and helping to rebuild and redesign the nation's freeways for Solar powered Electric Cars. We have the plan. Let's everyone ANSWER this to get the GOV'T to do something truly amazing – PLAN FOUND AT www.america2inc.com