Are there any full elecrtic cars on the market?

Question

If not, how long will it be until there are? Also, is there a downside to electric?

Answer 1

No mines empty..... We all had to get out again to charge the batteries.

Seriously:

DETROIT - The company that supposedly killed the electric car will unveil a sleek new electric vehicle that someday could ease America’s addiction to gasoline at the Detroit auto show.

General Motors Corp., accused in the 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” of conspiring to cancel its 1990s EV1 model, was to unveil the Chevrolet Volt sedan concept at the North American International Auto Show on Sunday.

The Volt has a battery-powered electric motor that can run the car for up to 40 city miles on a single charge. Beyond that, a gasoline-powered, one-liter, three-cylinder engine can generate electricity to power the car and replenish the battery, with a range of up to 640 miles, GM said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16503845

Answer 2

Short answer: yes.

1) The Tesla Roadster is designed in the USA, and built

in England. It wil be available in Fall 2007. The cream of the crop. A sedan is in development.

2) If you don't need high speed, the Think cars are interesting. They are used for parking enforcement, beach patrol, etc. Used to be owned by Ford. Think is going to buy battery packs from Tesla.

3)Zapp has new and used electric vehicles.

4)There are some used electric Toyota's and Ford's on the market from some low-volume shipments those companies made.

Downside:

1) Short range

2) Long 'refueling' time

3) More expensive to buy than petroleum-engine vehicles.

Answer 3

Yes.

For example the Xebra. (google "Xebra electric car" should be the top hit)

They are essentially street legal golf carts though.  Low power, Small, Slow, short range.

Range and performance are the main probelms with all-electric.  To get performance you sacrifice range.  

It takes 8 times the power to go 60 mph as to go 30 mph.  So... you can go about 8 times as far at 30 mph as at 60 mph if everything eles about the car is the same.

The Xebra is proud of having a 35 mile range at 30 mph....  But in the real world... we drive at 60 mph quite often.  Who wants a car that has essentially 5 mile useful total range?

Answer 4

There's one in Europe, but you'll need a home loan to get one.

http://www.teslamotors.com

Answer 5

The downside is the initial cost is high... at least for now. But that's about it.

And as far as the EV1, GM made less than 2,000. Not 100,000. And that car didn't last simply because it WASN'T GOOD. It could only seat two people, had a range of 100 miles, cost over $40k, and it's overall quality was low.

People love to come up with conspiracy theories, and GM is often a target. Why? No idea. Probably because they are American.

They are making another electric car that will be out in ~2 years, and this one fixes all the problems of the EV1. It seats 5. Uses less batteries to cut down on cost. Has a 40 mile range (more than the average American drives in a day). And also has a gas engine that acts as a generator when the power is gone. While doing that it gets 50 MPG, which is better than a Prius. It has very good performance and should be in the $20k range.

Answer 6

This is why there are no electric cars on the road today. These answers make me ill. They are to expensive, no range, bad quality, no performance... many others. For the most part are just not true. There was a start to the electric car industry in California a few year back. Remember the GM EV1 it was only one of many electric cars running then. There was a whole fleet made by Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford. Many stations to plug into in city's and at home. The problem was that the State of California was sued by the car industry and the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the law that said some cars had to have zero emissions. They won and the electric cars were called back when the leases were up and destroyed. Watch the documentary called who killed the electric car. Its got some good information. Do your own research as well. Don't just take it as fact. Lets get the opinions out there changed.

Answer 7

There used to be but GM scrapped the idea, surprise surprise.

Answer 8

There are several, unfortunately they are expensive, impractical, unsafe or some combination of these.

Answer 9

Sure there are, WheelChairs, GolfCarts, UtilityCarts,-etc.

Answer 10

Yup!

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

Answer 11

http://www.Teslamotors.com

this car, the Tesla roadster, is amazing and runs on laptop batteries... and it is available around the world.

The downside maybe that as the demand for electricity goes up, there may be more pollution being created by the electricity factories.

Answer 12

There are a few electric cars on the market.

Right now you can break them up into three categories:

1. Super expensive sports electrics. (Tesla $92k, Fetish $200k)

2. Slow NEV (neighborhood cars, 35 mph)

3. Fleet electrics (phoenix motorcars, $45k)

I don't think any are suitable for mainstream unfortunately. To get a real car under $50k we'll have to wait a bit. The most interesting to me is the Chevy Volt 2009-2010, because it's a serial hybrid, meaning it only runs on electricity, but has a generator that can make it's own electricity giving it a longer range.

Tesla has a sedan coming out code named the Whitestar for 2009 or 2010 that's supposed to be under $50k, but the details aren't known.

The Phoenix truck and SUV that's for sale only to fleets currently may become available to the public. The upside is fast charging and performance, the downside is that even though it's $45k now, they haven't gotten the battery manufacturing costs down enough to mass market the car.

The EV-1 wasn't a great car, people just use it to try and point fingers. The battery was never good enough, and you'll never see that battery running another EV, the cost was way way too high and the performance lacked, with the range dropping and dropping fast the more the car was used.

Answer 13

There are a few.  My two favorites are the Zap Xebra, which goes up to 40 mph and 40 miles per charge, and costs under $10,000

http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id...

and the Tesla Roadster, which is an electric sports car that goes over 200 miles per charge and very fast, but costs $92,000

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

There are some others which are basically upgraded golf carts, and there are other models in production but not yet on the market.

The downside to electric is that the batteries are heavy, contain heavy metals, and have a limited range.  However, as you can see with the Tesla Roadster, battery technology continues to improve.  They're moving from Nickel metal hydride to Lithium ion batteries, which are better.  Electric cars used to require special charging stations, but the Xebra just uses a regular 110 volt outlet to recharge.  There's also technology arriving that will recharge a car's batteries in just 10 minutes, whereas it takes several hours in electric cars like the Xebra.

The other minor downside is that electric cars rely on the power grid, which is often supplied with energy from coal burning power plants.  However, electric engines are so efficient that they still produce far less greenhouse gas emissions than regular combustion engines even when the power plants fueling them are coal burning.  In places like California where the power grid is relatively very environmentally friendly, electric cars produce far, far less CO2 emissions than gas fueled cars.

Answer 14

the smart car is one option, but I have only heard of them being in europe. electric cars are seen by many as enviromentally friendly. But, there are two sides to every coin. electric cars have to be "plugged in" to the power grid. And in th eunited states, most of the power produced comes from coal fired power plants. so, you are actually contributing to the problem. electric cars also have short travel distances compared to internal combustion cars, and have limited speeds (around 60 mph).