Electric cars DIRTIER and COST MORE to run per mile... Say it ain't so......

Setec Astronomy said:
We need that for everything, not just for cars. If we could power everything else with solar or wind (or nuclear), then we could keep the gasoline for cars! What we really need is a breakthrough in solar cost or efficiency, so we can plaster everything with solar cells. And then we need a breakthrough in battery technology so we can store that power. I'm not too optimistic for either.
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Honestly, the problem is that there's laws/regulations in place from preventing your average Joe from generating too much electricity and/or becoming self-sufficient (in many states it's even illegal to just gather rain water!). A friend of mine was generating more power than he could use and he was locked up for operating a power generating station without the proper paperwork, permits, and zoning, he was charged criminally (I think he did ~9 months in jail and they took away all his windmills and water wheels).

You can check for yourself, the government doesn't want people living off the "grid". They control the resources and services while we play with the money.
 
4u2nvinmtl said:
You can check for yourself, the government doesn't want people living off the "grid". They control the resources and services while we play with the money.
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That may be in CAN more than in the US...it's perfectly legal in my state (not to say you don't have to have permits to install), but I certainly have read about the power companies pushing back (in HI particularly). Let's face it, power generation is big business, and we know big-business protects itself any way it can--with lobbyists and laws as applicable.
 
No more Taxpayer funded incentives to purchase alternative fuel vehicles priced over $30k

If you want a $100k Tesla, you can certainly have it, but you should not expect the rest of use to kick in $8,000 for the Federal Tax Credit so You can claim you are saving the planet

Send that $8k to India and buy some propane cooking stoves....the impact would be much higher
 
allenk4 said:
If you want a $100k Tesla, you can certainly have it, but you should not expect the rest of use to kick in $8,000 for the Federal Tax Credit so You can claim you are saving the planet
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Why is it if you buy a fuel-efficient vehicle, you are "saving the planet"? Do you ridicule your customers who have little cars and tell them they should drive a Suburban?

This reminds me of the 70's when there were the muscle-car guys and the sports car guys--they were just guys with different tastes. Some guys liked to go fast in a straight line, some guys liked to go fast around curves (of course, with the technology gains noted previously, now you can have both).

If I like brunettes over blondes, am I saving the planet from hair-dye residue?
 
4u2nvinmtl said:
I had read that it takes something like 4 gallons of crude oil to extract 5 gallons of crude oil (net profit of one gallon) and that's just crude oil extraction/transport not including refinement to gasoline...
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Please provide additional substantiation for your statement above

Thanks
 
Ronkh said:
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Your not driving it right (J/K)! That's very incredible!!
 
allenk4 said:
Please provide additional substantiation for your statement above

Thanks
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Google isn't finding the article (it was shared on Facebook). I'm not saying it's fact, it's just something I read that sounded very surprising as the oil company's don't like to share this type of information.

I can assume/speculate that it was a worse case scenario about oil drilling platforms as it takes a lot of fuel to move them around.
 
Down my way, we got some real OG zero emission drivers.... If you want to save the planet, I suggest hooking up with these dudes.

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As a matter fact, we were looking at new houses a while back and energy savings was high on the list. And when the washer or fridge quits (don't you love that) we always buy energy star rated replacements, so it's NOT just cars that I look at in the energy savings. The last car I bought was a 2014 Honda Civic EX-L for my youngest daughter. It gets 34 mpg. I paid 24K for it, now, compare all the features on that to what it would cost on a Prius and then do the math. I have a 2012 Camry SE that gets 27-28 mpg vs the honest 34-35 that the Camry hybrid gets, and would have cost much more to get the same options - again, do the math.
I don't hate Prius, I just don't think they are worth the extra money and the interiors are not appealing to me. I've detailed a few.
I think hydrogen fuel cells are the future, not batteries. We'll see what happens in the next 10 years.
 
Junebug said:
I have a 2012 Camry SE that gets 27-28 mpg vs the honest 34-35 that the Camry hybrid gets, and would have cost much more to get the same options - again, do the math.
I don't hate Prius, I just don't think they are worth the extra money and the interiors are not appealing to me. I've detailed a few.
I think hydrogen fuel cells are the future, not batteries. We'll see what happens in the next 10 years.
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It's hard to make the short-term ROI case on a hybrid, but it's really no different than trying to make the case for a higher efficiency furnace or a high SEER air conditioner (or an LED light bulb). I don't agree about the hydrogen economy--the infrastructure will be too hard to build out and there is too much competition (from other alternate fuels). The beauty of hybrids, plug in hybrids, and perhaps EV's is they use the existing gasoline and electric infrastructures.

As far as your comments about the hybrids having substandard trim/options, I think a lot of that is market-driven--because the target for hybrids is "planet savers", the hybrid portion is taken to an extreme in an attempt to differentiate it from a "normal" (non planet-saving) car. I think some of the luxury examples (Lexus, Lincoln MKZ) are more balanced (in fact IIRC the MKZ had no premium for the hybrid version).

The other thing I can't agree with is that hybrids are about "batteries"; they're not--they are about recovery of braking energy. It's not a new idea, it came up during the '73 embargo, the idea then was flywheels (back when batteries and electronics were not so sophisticated). Flywheels - Scientific American

It's probably a moot point, we're going to see cars becoming more efficient, and I don't see a loss of performance when you see things like small turbocharged engines and dual-clutch automatics coming down the pike.
 
trashmanssd said:
My new water heater is a hybrid, Heat pump with standard electric heat for certain situations
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Those heat pump water heaters make no sense to me--maybe in CA where they are out in the garage and it's hot in there---but for me why would I want to pump heat out of my basement into my water? When I'm heating my house half of the year?
 
ec90 said:
We could look to Denmark on how a country can move forward with an idea that even if it costs more paves the way to the future instead of solely focusing efforts on technology with a more finite lifespan.
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My Grandparents immigrated from Denmark to the States in the 50's

If you lived in Denmark right now you would, on average, make 30% less and pay Personal Income Tax of 61%

As long as somebody else is paying for it...it is always a brilliant idea


Denmark Personal Income Tax Rate | 1995-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Those heat pump water heaters make no sense to me--maybe in CA where they are out in the garage and it's hot in there---but for me why would I want to pump heat out of my basement into my water? When I'm heating my house half of the year?
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Is the cold water coming out of your faucet lower temperature than the air temperature in your garage?

That is why a Heat Pump works. Air Conditioners are also heat pumps
 
4u2nvinmtl said:
Google isn't finding the article (it was shared on Facebook). I'm not saying it's fact, it's just something I read that sounded very surprising as the oil company's don't like to share this type of information.

I can assume/speculate that it was a worse case scenario about oil drilling platforms as it takes a lot of fuel to move them around.
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You cannot find it, because it is not true

Please keep looking; maybe try Snoopes
 
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