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| Electric Ford F-100 Mashable |
Pretty truck, though I think what makes it attractive is the paint job and the lowered stance. Not sure why that is. Perhaps it is years of conditioning. Stock cars have several inches of ground clearance to enable them to cope with real world roads, roads filled with all manner of obstacles. Custom cars, hot rods, race cars, super exotic cars all sit very low to the ground. It looks cool, but is totally impractical for anyplace besides a race track. I suspect they are feeding a fantasy - if you have this car you can go really fast on race track, a fantasy that completely ignores having to go to the grocery store to pick up a box of pampers.
The idea of an electric car is attractive, but the reality is a little hard to swallow. An electric car would probably work very well for me. I seldom make any long trips, the car would sit in the garage all night, every night, charging away. All I would have to do would be plug it in when I pull in and unplug it when I leave. Yes, all that plugging and unplugging would be a nuisance, but so is going to the gas station. Stopping at Costco for gas on my way into town takes an extra two miles and ten minutes, not counting waiting in line and at the pump.
There are other factors, like the cost and weight of the batteries, the possibility of a battery fire and the difficulty of putting out such a fire, but every modern convenience comes with risks and I suspect electric cars are less risky overall than others.
The one thing that concerns me is the electronic power controls. Being solid state, they are going to be reliable, but at some point they are going to start failing, maybe just of old age. When they fail they are going to very expensive to replace, partly due to their very reliability. If they never fail, there won't be a stout supply chain to supply replacement units. You'll have to go back to the factory where you will find that they quit making that model years ago and your best bet is to pick up one from a junkyard, or send it to Joe's Electric Power Control Repair Shop where they will tell you that the flux capacitor is blown, the ones used in your control box are very rare and will cost as much as a new control box, which you can't buy. Best just go buy a new car. Vunderbar.
The main reason I don't want an electric car is I allocated too much of my brain to the internal combustion engine. I could dive deep into how electric cars work, you can go all the way down to the quantum explanation of magnetism, but I don't think I've got the brain capacity for that AND all my knowledge about conventional automobile engines. Something would have to go, and since all my current knowledge was hard fought, I am reluctant to let my engine knowledge go. Of course, at my age, memory leaks are starting to appear (no they aren't!). I've made a couple of passes at trying to understand magnetism, but it gets really deep really quickly, and some of it just doesn't make any sense.
If your ignore the really deep parts of magnetism though, electric cars are simplicity itself, and I suspect that is one of the main attractions. Electric motors are ubiquitous in the modern American household, so people are familiar with them and how they operate. Internal combustion engines by comparison are horribly complicated. I can see how - for someone who is not mechanically inclined - they could be a little off-putting. You may as well tell a non-mechanical person that they need a new slankerator (an imaginary part) as tell them need a new head gasket (a real thing). For a non-gear head, it's all just Greek and could very well just be myths designed to extract money from their wallet.
Obligatory slam on the bogus green-ness of electric cars: most electric power in the USA comes from burning fossil fuels. So right there electric cars are producing just as much greenhouse gas as conventional cars. Add the amount of power lost in long distance power transmission and the efficiency of an electric car is worse than a conventional gasoline powered car. So electric cars are contributing more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than regular cars.
Good post. I agree.
ReplyDeleteMostly right, but losses due to electric transmission over wires is down to about 5% I read somewhere. Electric cars supposedly have very high performance, which to me is unnecessary. the BWM i8 has a 3 cylinder smartcar engine.
ReplyDeleteAll teh stuff that wears out on cars will still wear out, tires, brakes, suspension, seats, radio, not to mention the voice command air controls.
I kinda like the golf cart approach. Finding a real town that allows it and is safe for it might be the key for me.