Yes but did you look at the link to "A Better Place": [url=http://www.betterplace.com/?]Better Place | The Global Provider of EV Networks and Services.
Renault is building the cars and the infrastructure for real electric cars is being built in Denmark and Israel. They’re also planning or running tests in San Fransisco and using the technology in taxi cabs in Japan. There may be others but those are the ones I read about. I think it’s the real deal.
Yeh, I think it is linked to in the 2nd post of this thread. I did read about the Israel thing a year or so ago, about them taking the opportunity to go electric while their infrastructure is in its infancy almost. Interesting to hear Denmark are jumping on board as well. Shame the UK won’t put money into an infrastructure here 
Would love that.
I will prefer Hybrid Cars over electric cars because hey are environment friendly.
I think this technology can help reduce the vehicule’s fuel consumption by 20 to 40% and therefore also reduces the emission of pollutants and CO2 and preserve our environment.
Yeah, I think it would be ideal for the UK too…
The guys at Better Place understand that because “Big Oil” is good at lobbying government they have to work at that level too. They don’t start with building a car and service stations, they start with government and a plan. Then once they get the government on board, they approach the auto makers. The oil infrastructure is deeply embedded and the only way out is by making it as as good or better with an electric.
I am am also of the opinion that hybrid vehicles with hydrogen cells are the way to go with maybe a 50 mile Range emergency Back up electric battery that would charge itself via a dynamo while under the influence of the hydro cell
Yeah, disasters like that happen when people who know nothing about a subject are required to make actual decisions about it (politicians can’t be experts in everything).
Why I believe we’ll lose net neutrality too. It’s a series of tubes! I got an internet on Friday, but I didn’t see it until Monday! Because people are asking for smut videos and it’s not a big truck, it gets full! Tubes!
In Europe, at least, diesel cars now make up about half of all cars sold new. This is a result of the direct injection diesel engines that were developed in the mid-90s and now available in most cars, from small runabouts to large luxury saloons. My current car and my last two have been diesels, because they are so much cheaper to run and (in my view, which I know Top Gear doesn’t share) so much nicer to drive.
Compared with the petrol engined version with a similar horsepower, my car has 70% more torque, which improves the driving experience immeasurably (particularly when lugging heavy loads, driving on hilly roads and overtaking), uses 35% less fuel and gives 35% less CO2 out the back. Unfortunately it’s difficult to find published figures on NOx emissions, but with the particulate filters that are now standard, it’s a world away from diesel engines of old.
There used to be a garage a few miles away that sold biodiesel (I think they made it themselves from rapeseed oil), which was about the same price as regular diesel, gave similar performance and fuel economy, but was much, much cleaner in terms of emissions. Unfortunately, because cars running on biodiesel are so difficult to start in the winter, they were losing trade for 3 or 4 months of the year and so closed down. Now I’m not aware of anywhere selling biodiesel, although one local chain uses a 10% blend. I think it’s a real wasted opportunity that we aren’t using more agricultural land to produce biodiesel – there’s plenty to go around even in a crowded country like Britain – as well as recycling used cooking oil and waste. I don’t know why we aren’t using more of it.
The stats suggest that pure biodiesel increases NOx emissions by up to 10% compared to regular diesel, but at the same time reduces other pollutants by more than 50% (although this is from a study several years ago, so things may have improved). Is NOx really that much worse than other pollutants that that’s a bad trade-off?
Studies seem to show that hybrids can be great around town, but when you’re doing most of your driving on highways, all you’re doing is lugging a big heavy lump of lead around in a normal car, with the exact effect on fuel economy that you would expect that to have. I do most of my driving on the open road, and very little in stop-start urban traffic, so a hybrid doesn’t seem like the solution to me. I like the fact that I can drive 600 miles and then refuel in under a minute – given the number of days where I’m driving more than 100 miles, and that I don’t have a convenient garage or carport where I could plug it in, a car that needs to be refueled/recharged more frequently than that and takes more than a minute to do is not one that I want.
What’s clear from the thread is that there is no easy answer on what type of fuel is best for the environment – there may not even be one single answer, depending on how you assess the impact. What is equally clear is that until and unless an eco-car can be made that matches the convenience, cost and drivability of current petrol/diesel cars, it will only serve the tiniest of niche markets.
Yup, my next car will likely be a diesel, got a petrol car at the moment.
I own a Honda Civic Hybrid that is 6 years old and has 150k miles, been driven ALL over the place. It used to average 42 mpg, but, now only averages 35mpg. I love it when I have to get our CA expensive gas and it is still less cash outgo than my Nissan.
My concern with all electric is that my CA Pacific Gas & Electric Bill is ENORMOUS despite redoing everything to low power. I do not think I can afford an electric car as it is much higher than our gas bill.
I do like the hydrogen, but I really hate the oil companies. So hopefully my hybrid will keep on ticking for a few more years while they figure it out. Wish we would spend money on alternate energy sources and quit the useless Afghan “war”
If you can’t afford electric, how on earth will you afford Hydrogen?
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing… Hydrogen although providing the cleanest emissions is extremely costly to process as a fuel source.
The best off the grid story I read was an article about a solar powered house (built in Boston I think) where the solar energy was used to produce hydrogen that was stored in another building and the hydrogen was used to fuel a fuel-cell that powered the house. Super cool but as I recall the system cost $250,000 (USD) to build.
Another alternative fuel is compressed air… In India Tata motors was building compressed air cars. The emissions are air 
Here’s a link to a Wikipedia page: Compressed air car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also I’ve been seeing a few Tesla cars on the road.
Not seen any Teslas over here, but I know there are some in the UK. There are just over 1000 roadsters I think, but it was never meant to be a big seller - just to keep them going until the Model S was ready to be built. Tesla announced yesterday or the day before that they are ending production of the roadster to concentrate on the Model S anyway, which should be a better seller.
Good Question.
I have no idea what hydrogen does or will cost. Now if I set my house up on solar power, I could probably use the excess to fuel my electric car.
I have not done alot of research on this and you guys definitely know more than I do about it. I do know my PG&E bill is over $250 a month just using fluorescent bulbs, low e appliances, and doing laundry once a week. So having to add a car - may be too high for me.
We shall see.
The Honda FCX Clarity Top Gear reviewed was something in the order of £250,000 I believe
It might look a bit like the trial they tried in Japan: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/13/4669043-tokyos-taxis-try-electric-cars
Here’s an odd take on the battery problem: Multi Fuel Internal Combustion Electromechanical Batteries – Got That?
This is a charging station that just opened up near me (the page will resize your browser… sorry): Free plug
Its all relative. There is NO perfect answer, we are people 
lets take a town that says we need to have safer walk ways, so they change all the intersections to the designed safer walk ways. Only the new design drastically increases road rage. Ultimately making things LESS safe. Oops, We do need a better system so we don’t need to use so much gas. We do need better recycling. We do need a way to generate power at the point of use.
I live in two areas, one you can heat your house run your lights etc from electricity for next to nothing. But I have to put up with high power transmission lines, :-P. The other place well, you turn off the lights if you leave a room for a minute.
Me I am watching the development of solar and wind at home closely. They have a new wind turbine I would like to install on my barn windtronics.com
I do think less government and less short term stock tricks would help companies go with the best long term strategies. Depending on location, those strategies do change.
Me? keeping my gas for now.
Which I think illustrates one of the biggest issues I was talking about… what’s practical in one region may not be practical in another. As you implied, there’s never going to be a one size fits all solution.
Well, hopefully unlike around here, you won’t spend for it, put it up, and then have the dirty hippies eco-nuts protesting out in your front yard about it endangering some damned species or another like they do here every time someone tries to put up a windmill or dam.
… and you can blame the right wing-nuts and the leftist moon-bats for that one; they seem to have this bizarre notion that government intervention can actually help situations – given the track record of such interventions it is really hard to figure where that delusion came from.
EXACTLY.