"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
.. .
On 05 Jan 2006 22:55:51 GMT, Adrian wrote:

Doctor Drivel ) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

So we abandon clean simple tranport because some goons want to drive
around in antiquated technology on one long shot.

Not at all.

a. EVs aren't clean until the power generation is clean. Which it isn't.

But they can be 15% cleaner..

...and don't ruin people's lungs in cities.

b. EVs just will not work for those who
do real miles. Who are the ones who
use the most fuel.

No, actually you are not.

The vast majority of fuel goes
in short hop private transport.

Yep.

For every daily loing s=dsitance
driver, there are 4-5 'sunday motorsists
'who use gallons of fuel starting up
and begotiation urban traffic to get
to the supermarket and back almost
every day, not to mention the school
run.

All that pollution around the kids lungs too.

The avreage yearly mileage is about
10k..with biger commutersr up around
20-30k and retired folk around 5k.

I think I heards sales rep boast once
of having put 65k on a car in a year.
Now asuming he used that car daily
and weekends, over lets say a 200 day
period, his average daily mileage was 325.

Most users at 10k, will be averageing
50 miles a day. Well within 'electric
range' if charged nightly.

....or zapped at a station.

Let say we can get an average performance car, for under £20k that will do
about 3p a mile fuel costs, 200 mile range, and apart from tyres, zero
maintenance for 150k miles. Would you buy it?

I would.

They aren't for sale right now...but they could be in 5-10 years time.

They will be. Mitsubishi has a whole new range of EVs designed from the
wheels up. By the time they bring it out batteries will have improved too.

Look what Calcars have done to the Prius. 120-180mpg and no mpg if the car
does not go over 41mph, so cheap charging overnight and no pexpensive petrol
used. http://www.calcars.org And the Prius can also be used a backuo genny
for your house (UPS) and run for two weeks on one tank if needed.

from http://www.boingboing.net/

"If the grid goes down - by dint of natural disaster, terrorist strike or a
spike in demand - Richard Factor has a Prius that can supply power to his
home. Factor, an electronics buff who lives in New Jersey, spliced a
heavy-duty outlet right into the car's electrical system and wired his
home's appliances to the Prius via a standard computer-backup system. When
the car's own potent battery loses too much energy, running the engine
recharges it. "If you are frugal, one tank of gas can power the house for a
couple of weeks," he says."