Are people missing the point about alternative fuel vehicles?

Question

I truly don't understand why so many people talk about the benefits of this or that alternative fuel because petrol / gasoline / oil is becoming depleted and expensive. Isn't it about steel and copper and plastic, too? The vehicles will still have to built in car plants which will use just as much (if not more) energy and natural resources in their building (even electric cars will require the building of large electric motors and batteries instead of petrol engines, for example ). Or will millions of cars be made of bioplastic materials and the world's car plants and power stations be run on renewable energy or biofuel, too? Don't we need a major rethink here? Shouldn't we be talking about how we're going to live in local communities, work locally, grow food locally and generally reduce our reliance on the car? This is a serious question - I hope someone can explain how we're going to actually build these millions of alternative fuel vehicles.

Answer 1

Yes, they can't accept the fact that there is the "Worlds Cleanest Car" coming this year.

"BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000."

Answer 2

YES!!!  A very good point.

Answer 3

argentse

why not convert an allready made one? save all that factory work...

The one EV car I currently have (have 2 vehicles that run on hydrogen also) I converted from a vw bug and is free to charge. As I live completely off the grid all my electricity comes from solar panels and 2 wind generators, which I also built.

However I did charge up at Costco in Carlsbad California (I actually only drove up there to fill up) if I remember right it was around $2.00

Here’s a list of other places you can charge up, don’t know if there are any prices though.

http://www.evchargernews.com/#regions

Not sure if you’re interesting in doing it your self, but I’d be willing to walk you step by step threw the conversion. I've converted 3 of my own cars (a datsun truck, ford ban, and a vw bug) and a few for neighbors. I've also converted cars to run on hydrogen, ethanol and biodiesel, by far EV is the easiest.

If you’re interested here’s what it would entitle…

- The engine compartment is first cleaned out of any gasoline components.

- Electric components are then installed in exchange.

- A battery bank is built and incorporated.

- Existing starter and driving systems are connected.

- Turn the key, step on the gas pedal sending more energy to the electric motor, & thus more power to the drive system, which in return creates more speed, more acceleration.

- The system has normal automotive top speeds and acceleration, typical to the vehicle your modifying. If your top speed was 85 mph and your acceleration was 1 mile per min, then this will be what your left with after the conversion.

The methods are extremely simple, making the process possible for anyone, everyone, ANYWHERE.

Typical tools, hardware & supplies are used, making access to parts available for all.

Electric Conversions can be easily accomplished in ANY model vehicle, even tractors, Generators, types of machinery, etc.

Project lengths range from 1 day to 1 month.

If you’re interested I wrote a guide on it which is available at www agua-luna com

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at  www agua-luna com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.

Dan Martin

Alterative Energy / Sustainable Consultant, Living 100% on Alternative & Author of How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Resource Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World... Instantly Elevating Their Income & Lowering Their Debt, While Saving The Environment by Using FREE ENERGY... All With Just One Click of A Mouse...For more info Visit:  

www AGUA-LUNA com

Stop Global Warming, Receive a FREE Solar Panels Now!!!

Answer 4

Millions of vehicles will be built each year, no matter what.  The question is what they will run on.  So, there will not be any increased use of resources for alternative fuel vehicles.  Thinking locally is not realistic for most of the world's population, because there are too many people on Earth.  The only way we will be able to reduce global warming or have a "sustainable lifestyle" is if about 90% of the population dies off.  The good news is, it might happen one way or another.

Answer 5

I am going to describe heresy... we may need to abandon large cities, along with abandoning  transportation in cars.

Cities will be unsustainable if we do not have just lots of energy to power them, transportation into them and out of them. We may find it practicable only to live within a bike ride from the land where we (not someone else) grow our food.

We could build many gigawatt of nuclear plants and power everything from that.

If we are content to build an infinity of wind power machines we might be able to support our base load.

One of our most urgent problems may be weed control to continue to feed ourselves. We may need manpower (hand weeding) right where we grow our food.

Forget  about how those many stoop laborers will power their cars. it will be food clothing and shelter for them.

Until basic energy requirements for cities are planned for and executed, it does not much matter how we power personal vehicles.

Answer 6

Any consumption uses limited resources, we only have a finite earth.

however Electric motors and batteries require less exotic materials and far fewer composite components that are hard to separate & recycle than complex infernal combustion engins & transmission systems.

Motors have been printed on circuit boards and mounted in the wheel hub; LI-ion batteries are fully recyclable.

Henry Ford was making car panels out of hemp fibre, and Toyota are investigating plastics from sweet potatoe.

I think the most difficult component post-peak oil will be the tyres qhich need about 8 gallons each.

The only real sollution to 6-9bn humans living on a finite planet is a culture shift to one that recognises the limits to growth and puts human values (like health, friends, good food) over the persuit of company profit and following latest fashions etc, as defined by the ancient Greek Epicurius http://www.alaindebotton.com/philosophy....

Answer 7

last i heard, more steel is used to make bottle caps than cars. in a dream world, we would have a 90% return rate on recycled materials, but ferioucious energy appetites will push housing/industry to ultimate receive power from nuclear plants. sad as it may seem cars would have to be hydrogen/battery types for real world application. its all possible, but everybody has to pitch in.

Answer 8

Please keep to the facts,  Why do we need alternative fuel vehicles?  Number 1 reason is Fossil fuel prices are high.  Why are Fossil fuel prices high?  No other choice for vehicles and we use it as fast as we supply it.  How do we use less?  Make more efficient vehicles and/or vehicles that run on non fossil fuels.  Solution - 1.  Electric vehicles run in equivalent to 150 mpg.  2. Electricity can be made from several types of fuels.  3.  If we use less oil, oil prices will go down.

Solution 2 - Good luck finding a easier or cheaper solution than solution 1.  Plug-in hybrid may be better but more complicated and not cheaper.  I could live with it through.

Also remember that not all people are in the same situation you are.  We all don't live in the city.  We all don't want to stay in the same small area all our lives.  Most of us would like to explore other areas and be able to get there at a reasonable price.

Answer 9

Sorry to break the news to you, but we are not running out of fossil fuels. We could make gasoline out of coal if we ran out of oil (we ain't). The state of KY has enough coal for the next 500 years.

We use gas/diesel fuels because they are the cheapest best  out there, and that is not going to change. Electric cars cause all kinds of pollution problems during there manufacture. Ethanol is just not practical. It is not a good idea to burn our food as fuel. Fuel cells have the same environmental problems as electric and are super expensive.

Answer 10

Metals are the most recycled materials there are. Metals are much more easily recycled than plastic. If you want to live like the Amish, a small, limited life in one place without going anywhere, go ahead, but don't force your ideas on me. I do not choose to pull back, retrench, hunker down, go back, give up, have less, sacrifice. I intend to soar, to innovate, to improve, to expand, to solve problems that have yet to be solved, like how to get off this planet and claim the whole universe as our home, and to invent new technologies like solar cells cheap enough to put on every roof.

Answer 11

Why not just let the market handle it?  Until there is a demand for those types of vehicles there isn't a reason to build them.

Answer 12

America is built around the car.  It's all fine and good to say we should live in local communities, work locally, etc., but realistically it's not going to happen and people are going to continue to drive cars.

Besides which, studies have shown that only 5-10% of a vehicle's lifetime energy use comes during the construction stage vs. 80-90% during the operations stage.  So if you've got a car that uses less energy and emits fewer greenhouse gases like an electric car, it can make a big difference.

Answer 13

Well, instead of using lots of energy to build gas cars and then using lots of gas to drive them, we're going to use lots of energy to build electric cars.

Answer 14

The problem is u don't understand that oil & gas are renewable fuels. Fossil fuels come from plants . The CO2 we produce is taken in by the plants and give us back the O2 ,but the plant keeps the C which is used to build the plant bigger.Follow the oil actually comes from the plants . It doesnt take a million years ,look at the olive, which is squeezed to get the oil out and that would make biodiesel. The dinausauers would eat the plants and get fat but the oil still came from plants. The plants not only recycle our air but also the Oil & gas . So oil is a continnualy renewed energy source.

Answer 15

Okay... to respond to a few of the false statements in the previous answers.

First, plastic is much easier to recycle than metals.  Because people don't understand it as well, they assume it to be harder.  In point of fact, it takes as much as 1000 times more energy to recycle aluminum than it does plastics.

Second, we are going to run out of oil.  This is just a simple fact.  The earth does not have unending reserves of oil hiding underground.  Read up on the phenomena of peak oil... I was a skeptic at first too, but this is real.

Okay... now on to the question.

You are absolutely right, we do need to reexamine the entire production paradigm.  Though granted, the big auto makers are getting really good at reducing their waste and energy consumption strictly out of economics.  So with a little more effort, I think we could see some major improvements in this area.

As for the notion of living in smaller communities... this really isn't the american way.  We love our big, loud, wasteful cities.  At least many americans do.  I would rather see a functional mass transit system similar to Tokyo's trains.  I was blown away by the efficiency of the system, and it's always (99.9%) on time.  This type of development would allow us to still move in massive numbers, and yet reduce the total number of vehicles needed to do it.  I could literally get to any point in the greater Tokyo area without a car, it was amazing!

There is of course the trouble with mass production of alternative fuel vehicles.  Since I firmly believe that no one fuel will be the answer, the automakers will need to devise a platform capable of accepting a variety of power sources.  And that gets expensive, very very expensive.