A1phaGeek
12-01-2008, 05:51 PM
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2008/12/01/news/local/doc493376b3f2721656022610.txt
Car sales are plunging, and auto execs say the industry hasn’t hit bottom.
Millions of jobs are at stake if it fails.
Oh, man. Whither the future?
Actually, it’s easy: get busy making cars powered by electricity, hydrogen, garbage, ammonia, vegetable oil, the wind, the sun and/or methane from animal manure.
We already have hybrid cars that run on a mixture of electricity and gas.
And the same ol’ approach — drilling for oil, wrecking the environment, possibly changing the earth’s climate — is obviously not working.
So why the heck aren’t we going for it?
Good question!
General Motors made a highly efficient electric car, the EV1, in the mid-1990s.
It’s alleged that when GM realized it was too reliable — wouldn’t break down so you’d have to buy another one — it recalled all 1,000 EV1s it had leased and had them scrapped (see http://ev1-club.power.net and the 2006 film, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”).
General Motors and others say no conspiracy was involved.
“Despite the substantial investment of money and the enthusiastic fervor of a relatively small number of EV1 drivers — including the filmmaker — the EV1 proved far from a viable commercial success,” said Dave Barthmuss of GM’s communications department, on a blog post, “Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car?”
But Mason City architect Tom Hurd, who operates a “green” office and owns a solar-powered scooter, said GM “shot itself in the foot.”
“It just shows they’re trying to control the market,” he said. “They’re not really interested in making the best product they can make. They don’t understand that the world’s changing, and you can’t keep making the same mousetrap.”
They killed the EV1. But the future won’t be denied.
Tesla Motors of San Carlos, Calif., is now making its Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car which can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, burns no oil and gets 244 miles per charge (www.teslamotors.com).
“It has out-performed just about everything on the road, short of a $600,000 Lamborghini,” Hurd said. (The Roadster costs $109,000!)
And if you’d like to get 300 miles per gallon, check out the three-wheel, plug-in, space-age, electric-gas hybrid “Typ-1” Aptera (www.aptera.com).
Aptera’s all-electric version, which was to go into production late this year, will cost about $27,000.
And coming in 2009: a car powered by air-compression which will get the equivalent of about 106 mpg and cost about $17,800 (http://zeropollutionmotors.us).
Hurd thinks the big U.S. auto-makers will have to free their minds and produce cars like these within four or five years.
“If they don’t, other (overseas) companies will do it in place of our auto companies and they’ll lose out,” he said. “It’s really sad. It all depends on the leaders at the top.”
Dick Johnson writes about people, places and things on Mondays in the Globe Gazette. To leave comments or suggest column ideas, call 641-421-0556 or send e-mail to dick.johnson@globegazette.com.
Car sales are plunging, and auto execs say the industry hasn’t hit bottom.
Millions of jobs are at stake if it fails.
Oh, man. Whither the future?
Actually, it’s easy: get busy making cars powered by electricity, hydrogen, garbage, ammonia, vegetable oil, the wind, the sun and/or methane from animal manure.
We already have hybrid cars that run on a mixture of electricity and gas.
And the same ol’ approach — drilling for oil, wrecking the environment, possibly changing the earth’s climate — is obviously not working.
So why the heck aren’t we going for it?
Good question!
General Motors made a highly efficient electric car, the EV1, in the mid-1990s.
It’s alleged that when GM realized it was too reliable — wouldn’t break down so you’d have to buy another one — it recalled all 1,000 EV1s it had leased and had them scrapped (see http://ev1-club.power.net and the 2006 film, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”).
General Motors and others say no conspiracy was involved.
“Despite the substantial investment of money and the enthusiastic fervor of a relatively small number of EV1 drivers — including the filmmaker — the EV1 proved far from a viable commercial success,” said Dave Barthmuss of GM’s communications department, on a blog post, “Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car?”
But Mason City architect Tom Hurd, who operates a “green” office and owns a solar-powered scooter, said GM “shot itself in the foot.”
“It just shows they’re trying to control the market,” he said. “They’re not really interested in making the best product they can make. They don’t understand that the world’s changing, and you can’t keep making the same mousetrap.”
They killed the EV1. But the future won’t be denied.
Tesla Motors of San Carlos, Calif., is now making its Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car which can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, burns no oil and gets 244 miles per charge (www.teslamotors.com).
“It has out-performed just about everything on the road, short of a $600,000 Lamborghini,” Hurd said. (The Roadster costs $109,000!)
And if you’d like to get 300 miles per gallon, check out the three-wheel, plug-in, space-age, electric-gas hybrid “Typ-1” Aptera (www.aptera.com).
Aptera’s all-electric version, which was to go into production late this year, will cost about $27,000.
And coming in 2009: a car powered by air-compression which will get the equivalent of about 106 mpg and cost about $17,800 (http://zeropollutionmotors.us).
Hurd thinks the big U.S. auto-makers will have to free their minds and produce cars like these within four or five years.
“If they don’t, other (overseas) companies will do it in place of our auto companies and they’ll lose out,” he said. “It’s really sad. It all depends on the leaders at the top.”
Dick Johnson writes about people, places and things on Mondays in the Globe Gazette. To leave comments or suggest column ideas, call 641-421-0556 or send e-mail to dick.johnson@globegazette.com.