San Diego Speaks: Electric Cars

KPBS reporter Sharon Heilbrunn asks San Diegans if they would be willing to switch to electrical cars.

Category:

News & Politics

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• sdweek
• san
• diego
• week
• kpbs
• green
• electric
• cars

[bajatmerc]

I'd pay $10,000 for one.

[lpgas1]

these are all good points and i love your way of thinking but...the average electric car only has a 20kw battery pack and this will allow that car to go at least 100kms. now lets say that for every electric car sold, you also received a 2.5kw solar panel grid tie kit. that kit will on average make 15kws of power on a spring day.more in summer. the other 5kws could be obtained when the grid is making too much at night! ....just a thought. i try to look at small numbers...easier to work with =]

[theskyscrappernow]

@lpgas to sum up, I believe that we have to continue to work on renewable sources, but we're still on the early stages of successfully obtaining the most out of them. So, it's not gonna be as easy as just throw on the market millions of these vehicles...there are many questions that need to be solved.:)

[theskyscrappernow]

@lpgas1 But again, if you take an average of 80KW (roughy 100hp) for every car on earth, multiply it for 700 million cars on the planet, you get 56E9KW of power needed. Take an average nuclear reactor of 1000MW, that means you're gonna need 56,000 of them to power a worldwide fleet of electric cars, when there are roughly 450 nuclear plants in the world. As you can see, not even our most powerful means of creating electricity could provide such huge amounts of energy.

[theskyscrappernow]

@lpgas1 So, the first steps that we all are going to notice is the 'downsizing' phenomenon that has already started in europe, with 1.4L cars and 170hp with a turbo boost that average +35mpg and 2.0L diesels that rival the Prius. Then, of course, hybrid cars will experience a notable expansion. V8's and higher will probably be gone in 10 years. And of course, the first massively produced electrics cars will enter our markets pretty soon.

[theskyscrappernow]

@lpgas1 you see, i'm studying mechanical engineering and i've been interested in electric cars for a while now...but there's still the problem that there aren't enough energy resources to obtain electricity for a worldwide fleet of electric cars...let alone clean electricity...so it's gonna take some time and their introduction is gonna be progressive over the next 20 years.

[theskyscrappernow]

@lpgas1 yeah, i know about the 30% efficiency on diesels and 25% in otto cycle...and yes, you got a point there saying that is easier to track the efficiency of the big pipe than millions of cars. :)

[lpgas1]

thats a very good question. but did you know that a car with a petrol/gas engine is only at best 30% efficient and most electric cars are at least 90%. it is easier to maintain one big tail pipe than millions of little ones on cars and on average an electric car uses 99% less energy to go the same distance as a gas powered car. i have an electric and they are great! if a gas car had the same amount of energy in its tank as i have in my batteries it would only go about 100yards and konk out!

[theskyscrappernow]

what's the point of using electric vehicles with "no emission" at all when 60% of the electricity we generate comes from fossil fuels?

[drivin98]

I don't believe anyone is being forced to buy anything but out of over 3,000,000 people, there will be some willing to fork out a little extra for a non-polluting car. Nothing to get upset about. What about all those folks with two Mercedes in their driveways? Do you get angry at them?