Don't buy a car unless it's electric!!!

To MAKE a Prius battery, it takes more emissions than the FULL LIFE of a Hummer.
You're heart's in the right place, but get the facts kid.
Electric, as it is currently, is not a solution. Some electric cars are actually good for the environment, many are just for show.

 

I don't believe that. Can you provide a reference?

 

i googled it...its all over the net

 

I love your idea but thats impossible.
Sorry.

 

So, I checked it out and found this:

So, once again, the anti-global-warming folks are caught with their pants down.

 

What? =S
How is saying that Prius' aren't as good as they are supposed to be anti-global warming?

And link please..

 

OK, it's not exactly anti-global-warming, but the fact that you stated very very strongly as true something that was very untrue and disparaging of one of our best routes to fight global warming (vehicle efficiency) wasn't helpful at all. I hope you check your facts more carefully in the future.

 

To be fair, that's not taking into account the energy used to make the prius battery is it? That's just fuel economy?


I don't know anything about the validity of the statement... just sayin'

 

You still haven't given me that link, afraid, it will give me material to dispute?

 

No, life-cycle includes the making of the battery. The Hummer loses, big-time.

Yahoo answers:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070601111159AAnKFjT

 

Unfortunately, once a false rumor like this gets started circulating on the internet, there's no stopping it. Beliefs seem to trump facts too often.

 

I dunno about that. I don't hear much people flaunting what they heard on Loose Change anymore.

I've read everything on that website. Including the articles in links. Not a single one of the debunking articles (or amateur CO2 calculations) mentions the production of the nickel battery that the original study did.
However, this article does quite a good job at attacking the validity of the study.
The best I can do with this information is leave the issue as unresolved and cloudy.

 

i cant wait til car thief's steal these electric cars and dump them in water reservoirs, lakes and ponds.. see how them batteries hold up then...

 

I guess you know that most parts of a used-up battery can be recycled. Once we have a large fleet of them out there, most new batteries for hybrids will be made with mostly recycled materials. That won't be true during the transition period only.

I still like the hydrogen idea and hope it stays alive.

 

I do and I don't. I have no clue if that holds true for all types of batteries or whatnot.
The transition period is a good point though.

Hydrogen is one of the alternative fuels that I've been following and rooting for.
Natural gas is also extremely interesting, but being that it's theoretically a fossil fuel, it doesn't sound permanently reliable. However, CMU can convert your car to run on gas, and you can run around on nickels a day. Wouldn't work out well for road trips though =P

 

I like hydrogen because it is a super-clean energy storage method. The hydrogen can be produced from any energy source that you want, at a central location, on a large, efficient scale. Just like electricity, but without the wires. That has to be the long-term solution for cars.

 

But the "problem" is we'd need to use water from the ocean, and the desalinization plants aren't cheap to run.

Would you have to desalinate the water before the electrolysis?

 

and where is the power coming from to charge these batteries?

 

a alternator like on regular cars..
there is nothing really magical to these cars, 4 wheels could of had generators on them for years to make others areas of the vehicles power needs possible. AirCon, heaters, defrost, lights ect..

 

You do realise that a generator needs energy to work? It does not make electricity for nothing, as you are generating, it will be resisting the rotational motion, ergo you need to give it more umph to power the generator and turn the wheels to drive. Having 4 smaller generators around the wheels is going to be heavier and less efficient than a single generator next to the engine etc to feed the same appliances, preserving more energy to make the wheels on the bus go round and round.

On the other hand, attatch the generator to the main drive via a small gearbox, and use it to charge batteries for all these things, whilst you are freewheeling down a hill or decelarating...oh wait, thats a hybrid car.