Any EV Astro or Safari?

[kings-x59]

[quote="GEJThe thing is if this is about cutting emissions it has been a long known fact the power plants are a major contributor to air pollution.Far beyond our vans.So by going to electric vans to me seems kind of like a dog chasing it's tail. #-o

This isn't about cutting emissions, at least not as far as drag racin EV'S, i mean he may run cleaner up the track but he is smokin the shit outta his tires before he runs so where is the worry about clean air there? This is nothing more than a cool vid to watch, and like you eluded to the electricity for the batt's has to come from somewhere and we all know that is from either coal fired plants or nukes ( very little from clean resources wind/solar ) and besides batts are not exactly earth friendly, so this guy can pretend he is doing his part and go back to smokin his bong but in all actuality, it just does not matter.[/quote]

lmao

[Kidhauler]

As far as the argument goes that the power plant makes more pollution than the van it doesn't hold water unfortunatly. If you think about it 1 power plant can supply the power for thousands of cars. This gives you one source of polution to monitor instead of one thousand or more sources to monitor. Plus with the growing shift to solar, wind and other cleaner sources of electricity and the fact that it is shipped to your car by using already exsiting power lines as opposed to a huge oil tanker then into a Tanker truck to get to the station the delivery system is much cleaner.

I think we are along way off from replacing gasoline engines with electric but for a commuter car I think it could be done rather cheaply.

[reaper]

I have held high interest in going electric for a few years.
My pocketbook was never fat enough to do so.
When I witnessed a beat up old electric ford festiva
do a 1,2,3,4th gear burnout I was hooked.
With today's technology ie:Brushless powered motors(I use them for RC)
& sensored controllers,& Lithium polymer batteries(wallet killer),
More power & runtimes are eaily attainable.
Manufacturers like Aveox have been the Industrial leaders with brushless motors.
Zilla controllers (brushed) have been around for a while & specialize in EV's.
A-123 cells are compact (& expensive),lightweight & produce rediculas ammounts
of output power.-They are involved in several EV's & drag EV's & bikes.(I also use them for
RC & they are my personal favorites).
If a person was to do there own work & buy the basic (unless that person is rich to do a
lipo/brushless set up) lead acid/brushed set up here in BC the cost would be 10 g's or so.
Batteries,motor,controller,wiring,cabling,cable ends,Failsafe,Fabrication,etc.
A astro would be a excellent candidate for such an adventure.

[astrozam]

As far as the argument goes that the power plant makes more pollution than the van it doesn't hold water unfortunatly. If you think about it 1 power plant can supply the power for thousands of cars. This gives you one source of polution to monitor instead of one thousand or more sources to monitor. Plus with the growing shift to solar, wind and other cleaner sources of electricity and the fact that it is shipped to your car by using already exsiting power lines as opposed to a huge oil tanker then into a Tanker truck to get to the station the delivery system is much cleaner.

I think we are along way off from replacing gasoline engines with electric but for a commuter car I think it could be done rather cheaply.

Powerplants power millions of homes right now, looked at your Hydro bill lately? whats happens when summer hits ? ( ask California with their brown-outs ) production of Juice in the summertime is already at near max capacity in many places, throwin a few million cars into the mix is not going to help any, now if there was an infinite source of clean hydro ( solar,wind ) then maybe, BUT there isn't currently, nor will there probably be in the for-seeable future ( besides where are the bucks going to come from to build these new plants? )
As for one source to monitor,lol please Hamilton is the one source for Steel in Canada the plants are supposedly monitored but if you lived there like I did for many years the quality of air still sucked and plants continuously broke enviromental laws and recieved slaps on the wrist.Nuclear is rediculously expensive and potentially very harmful, ask the people where the coal is mined along the east coast if its great for their enviroments, so using these two sources for additional capacity to juice up ev's is not the answer either.Ask the folks in Quebec and the eastern states what happens to the Power lines in one good ice storm! I will agree that it would be nice to cut out the crashing oil tanker, and if we actually used our oil then we could.We won't even talk about the tons of people who work in the oil industries that would no longer have jobs in the (oil-less world) so many people think is the answer.
So, for a select group of people with the money, living in certain areas this could be a viable alternative, but for MASS transit in North America it is a pipe dream, like I said originally it is a cool vid and nothing else. =;

Bring on the next cool vid.

[Smiliesafari]

To sum it up......The oil companys made the largest profit of any industry anywhere in the world in all of history in the year 2008. Do you think they will stand by and let electricity power our automobiles? #-o

[Cobra]

if we let them stop us no but that's only if we LET them


geez zam you really don't like electric cars eh?

[mdmead]

Thanks Zam. I was thinking what you typed (but was too lazy to do it).

In my perfect world, everyone would have a roof covered in solar panels, producing the bulk of electricity they use. I see this as a way to energy independence and insulation* from an overburdened grid. In this scenario, electric vehicles for the masses might make sense as the capacity would then be there. But currently there is no move towards mass solarization, and the large scale solar arrays and wind farms are doing nothing more than attempting to keep up with demand.

I'd still love to have an electric vehicle, but it would be more for the tinkerer in me than anything else.

(*grid-tied systems would offer less insulation since you go down when the grid goes down. But even grid-tied systems would take a huge load off the grid, making it more stable and secure. A battery back-up system would be my first choice, even though it costs more and requires a ton more maintenance.)

[d3athm3talh3ad]

i first saw the tesla motors website 2 years ago...and when i win the powerball lotto, i'm getting one...mainly because it got me thinking that with no fill-ups, no fluid changes, no filter changes, no maintenance besides nightly plug-ins, brakes at 30,000 (probably more-i'm pretty light on the brakes), batteries around 100,000 and tires...that would free up a lot of time for me, and with a bunch of money, that free time could be put to good use...of course the high price tag and the fact there's only 4 dealers in the US, if something were to tear up (the entire car is run off the central computer) it'd be pricey to get repaired...even with their $3000.00 add in on the car to allow for tows to the dealer, relegates ownership to fantasy land for me...they say on their website they are working on an entry-level vehicle and that they put out the high-end car to show off what an electric car could look like...

i would love to convert my van over, the quietness, the instant torque...but unless the batteries get a LOT smaller,(and of course, cheaper) i don't see it any time soon...i like cargo vans because they're empty in the back(a blank canvas, ready for whatever)...i don't want to fill that space up with batteries, and there didn't seem to be enough in the spare well of that datsun to power an astro to me...

cool video video though, and allows for lots of speculation and dreaming...

[astrozam]

geez zam you really don't like electric cars eh?

Huh :-k Not at all Pierre, in fact I did not bash the EV, just the thought that it is the cure-all to man's ecological woes, it simply isn't with our current methods of producing electricity for the masses.

[kings-x59]

i first saw the tesla motors website 2 years ago...and when i win the powerball lotto, i'm getting one...mainly because it got me thinking that with no fill-ups, no fluid changes, no filter changes, no maintenance besides nightly plug-ins, brakes at 30,000 (probably more-i'm pretty light on the brakes), batteries around 100,000 and tires...that would free up a lot of time for me, and with a bunch of money, that free time could be put to good use...of course the high price tag and the fact there's only 4 dealers in the US, if something were to tear up (the entire car is run off the central computer) it'd be pricey to get repaired...even with their $3000.00 add in on the car to allow for tows to the dealer, relegates ownership to fantasy land for me...they say on their website they are working on an entry-level vehicle and that they put out the high-end car to show off what an electric car could look like...

i would love to convert my van over, the quietness, the instant torque...but unless the batteries get a LOT smaller,(and of course, cheaper) i don't see it any time soon...i like cargo vans because they're empty in the back(a blank canvas, ready for whatever)...i don't want to fill that space up with batteries, and there didn't seem to be enough in the spare well of that datsun to power an astro to me...

cool video video though, and allows for lots of speculation and dreaming...

remove the tank, lots of space up underneath the van between the cross beams. fab some support racks, pan the bottom side with painted sheet metal with louvers. You'd not only save the space inside the van, you could actually improve the airflow under the van, and with judicious placement of the batteries, the van could be better balanced. in essence, create a weighted keel for your sail boat.

[Kidhauler]

I don't want to turn this into a polution vs power debate. But you would have your car plugged in at night when the power is cheaper in california. One of the problems with making power is that the generator runs its best and is most efficient at full load. This is why power gets cheaper at night to encorage you to use power at night for things like laundry and your dishwasher. Since your car would be done charging by the time you need to turn on your heat or AC in the house.

I think just from the cost of electricity vs the cost of gas that an electric car even with a limited range would be a huge cost savings to most people. And with the batties low in the van maybe we could do some astro rally cross.

[kings-x59]

man when it's ac weather down here, it runs 24/7. 80 degrees at 3am in august with 80% humidity is a cool night.
the limited range issue is what gives me pause, some of the evs I've seen the stats on get what, 40 miles on a charge.
won't get me to the job and home again. And, if I have to make a sojourn, forget it...

[Kidhauler]

the limited range issue is what gives me pause, some of the evs I've seen the stats on get what, 40 miles on a charge.
won't get me to the job and home again. And, if I have to make a sojourn, forget it...

This is why I think the Chevy Volt is a good idea. The first 40 miles aprox are on all battery power then the gas generator kicks in and the car gets 50mpg after that. You could get to work and half way back or better on a charge that they figure at todays energy rates is about 80 cents. So it wouldn't be out of the question for your daily commute to cost you around $1.00 -$1.25. I really want to check out that car when it comes out as with my short drive I could go most of the week on one charge to work and back. My monthly bill could be less than $10 for driving to work.

[GEJ]

Currently the power pack replacement for the Volt is great.How many times do you think you can run batteries down to dead?.What I think is going to happen is short term savings leading to a big long term expense.The other part of this is a car that wouldn't kill me in a 30mph crash.Go smaller???.Not my cup of tea.Astro's don't fair well in this area,but I am sure they would do better than a Volt let alone be able to get out of the way of a crash where the Volt couldn't.

In the big picture of things,I don't think we have found a answer alternative to the internal combustion engine yet. :-k


KH-I love ya man,but I thought I needed to express my feelings on this subject.

[Cobra]

geez zam you really don't like electric cars eh?

Huh :-k Not at all Pierre, in fact I did not bash the EV, just the thought that it is the cure-all to man's ecological woes, it simply isn't with our current methods of producing electricity for the masses.

Dude there is NO cure ALL answer when it comes to humans lol
on a side note if someone requested your assistance in testing a considerably more efficient energy product system would you agree?

i don't want to fill that space up with batteries, and there didn't seem to be enough in the spare well of that datsun to power an astro to me...

cool video video though, and allows for lots of speculation and dreaming...

remove the tank, lots of space up underneath the van between the cross beams. fab some support racks, pan the bottom side with painted sheet metal with louvers. You'd not only save the space inside the van, you could actually improve the airflow under the van, and with judicious placement of the batteries, the van could be better balanced. in essence, create a weighted keel for your sail boat.

i thought about chassis rigidity and weight distribution but never even once thought about air flow under the van. this could be very interesting

KH-I love ya man,but I thought I needed to express my feelings on this subject.

this topic wouldn't be interesting if we didn't hear everyone’s thoughts on the subject