Why can't they just make an all-electric car?

Question

I've read about hybrids that switch to gas at 40+ mph and some that only use gas to recharge the battery. Why don't they just make an all-electric car and do away with gas altogether. I'm sure people wouldn't have trouble with the switch, especially in countries that pay $10+ a gallon.

Answer 1

www.teslamotors.com

200 miles per charge

batteries last 100,000 miles

charges over night by regular plug

Can recharge by solar

Soon to get DOE loan guarantee

Price will come way down with production.

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2006/11...

Answer 2

they did

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

Answer 3

All energy has to come from somewhere. The utility companies would love to Be the replacement for the OIL companies.

We would need to build nuclear plants to supply the electricity. It takes time to recharge batteries. As long as you could be near home where the batteries could be recharged over night, it could work. But long distance travel could be a problem.

Answer 4

Actually i can't remember if it was Nissan or Toyota. However, an engineer died recently from trying to convert such a car. Now, I have also heard from Glenn Beck or Schnitt on the radio, that there is a certain type of very explosive battery that Engineer's are trying to study and use to complete electric cars. However, that such battery is very explosive.

Which means we are just not yet completely smart enough to handle the equipment needed to complete the deal. This explains why the engineer died and why they aren't on the public market just yet. Let's just wait a few more years.

Answer 5

OK. you know you live in a corrupt country right.  If you make a all electric car than in time all the gas owner ( ie: your president) will become broke.   Uncle SAM is all about his paper

Answer 6

dude, i've been wondering the same thing!

i was watching discovery channel, specificaly the show daily planet. and they were doing a story on some 17 year old who converted an old pick up into a highway driveable pick up. and its battery lasted atleast 3 times longer than what you'd expect from an average sedan's gas tank. and they said it only cost him 10 to 15 bucks to recharge the batteries each month. plus he did it all by himself for 6000 dollars canadian and he did it in his spare time.

i asked the same question, i have more details in my question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 7

There is no battery technology that is cost effective.  A battery operated car is fine for the commuter who drives 20 miles to work but it just doesn't work for someone who drives a greater distance or for a transport truck that has to move 80,000 lbs of cargo.  It is possible to build a hybrid so that a gasoline or better yet a diesel engine turns a generator to power a battery bank which then powers the cars motor.  But lets think about physics energy is neither created nor destroyed so you would be the same shape you are in now.

Answer 8

The problem is in the batteries.  Obviously an electric car would only work if it had batteries to store the energy, as you couldn't be plugged into a power socket at all times.  The problem is we are still struggling to create batteries that can store enough energy to power a vehicle more than a few miles before depleting its batteries and requiring a recharge.

The other thing to consider is where the power from your wall socket comes from.  Over 60% of power in the US comes from burning fossil fuels (coal or oil) at power plants.  Therefore you are not decreasing your "carbon footprint" at all by using electric cars, you're just changing where the fossil fuels that power your vehicle are burned.

Answer 9

There are all electric small cars in the UK which dont cost a lot but are slow-ish (ok for town/city driving) and only get 60 miles on an overnight charge.

When yuo factor in the cost of charging the car it doesnt make much financial sense.

As for the environment people forget how much chemicals, etc are used not only in batteries but also in the production of Nikel Metal Hydride batteries. These factories pollute quite a lot. Then where does the electric come from to run the car? Faries?? Nope. Coal, gas and oil burning power stations mainly.

What we need is an alternative such as hydrogen (honda are developing this) but where the hydrogen itself is made in an environmentally friendly way.

Answer 10

long distance journeys would be almost impossible. You'd have to stop overnight after a certain amount of driving. Fual is an instant refill.

that, and the petrol companies would send a bunch of heavies to smash the prototype

Answer 11

There already are a couple such vehicles - but they run out of gas - excuse the pun - after only 25 miles and it takes several hours to re-charge 'em...plus they cost almost eighty thousand dollars!

Answer 12

They can at the moment but big oil has done everything possible to stop them from being produced cheaply.

It's like when VCR's first came out they were expensive now they are cheap.

Once someone mass produces them everyone will buy them.

The running costs are a fraction of combustion engine car and they will last a long time without all the service and replaclement parts of an ordinary car.

Just ask yourself why would car makers and oil companies be against such a vehicle?

Toshiba just brought out a battery that can be charged very quickly at a charging station or overnight at home. And there are none of the safety issues that people talk about.

A car that can be charged in less than 10 minutes, is cheap to run and lasts a long time. It will have a range of over 100miles, top speed over 80mph.

Sounds ideal for most folks.

How many miles do you do in a day?

Most people less than 50.

Answer 13

They already have but they are not appealling to people.

Answer 14

Basically, because oil is a big business, and they have the auto industries in their hip pocket.  I have no doubt that such a car could have been on the market at least 20 years ago if this was not the case.

Answer 15

Sorry but U can not get something for nothing. The efficiency will kill your dream . The batteries would require a truck to pull in a trailer and so your power requirements would go up...

Answer 16

If you consider the amount of pollution that a power station would produce to charge up all the batteries for all these electric cars the pollution would be greater than it is now. This is because a power station will work well below 100% efficiency that for every Kw of energy there would be about 1.2KW of energy used. The only difference is that all the pollution will be in and around the power station. The amount of greenhouse gasses would still be pumped into the atmosphere as before. By the way diesel in the UK is nearer 6$ a gallon.

Answer 17

The eco-knuckleheads who are selling the "moving the energy from oil to power plants" to charge the batteries need to stop smoking the 'green' stuff.

If it were up to them, we'd all be living in caves like Bin Laden. I say let's grind up these hippies and turn them into bio-fuel.

Soylent Green for the 21st century!

Answer 18

It's called research and development. Car companies are rapidly trying to make consumer viable a cars that run on electricity only. The company that achieves this will make far more than they will lose from the oil companies. As for those cars that have a gas generator, those are designed that the average commuter would rarely need to use the generator, mostly just on longer commutes.

These things are easier said than done.

Answer 19

its expensive.

Answer 20

There are a lot of all electric cars already on the market to day,

There ar also a lot of cars converted to electricity, below is a link, to cars that have been converted to Electric, you might want to check how many batteries they are using, and the range and speed of each.

http://www.evalbum.com/cntrl/CAFE/

Answer 21

First of all there are already all electric cars. Secondly you can't use two batteries because that is not how electricity works. If you charged a rechargeable battery then hooked a dead one up to it, both would end up a little less than half way full, due to resistance and that doesn't even factor in the electricity needed to power the electric motor. So using two batteries obviously doesn't work. On the other hand with the advances in battery technology, today's batteries can store twice as much power in half the space. These batteries can then be changed using one of Americas most abundant resources, wind power.

Answer 22

Electric cars are produced already and should be getting released in the year 2010.

check out the link I provided you..

Answer 23

Toyota recently announced plans to do just that.  Just bear in mind, when you plug the car in to recharge, it causes more fossil fuel to be burned at the local power plant.

Answer 24

Many companies are making all-electric cars.  See the link below for a summary.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/electr...

The benefit of a plug-in hybrid is that you can take long trips and not have to worry about running out of battery charge.  But as you note, you're still relying on gas, so I agree that fully electric cars are better in that aspect.

Many people answered that electric cars don't decrease your carbon footprint.  They're wrong, as shown in the link above.

Answer 25

There are few best guides which covers all about running your car on water, one among the guides I found great is here you can check this site here:

http://tinyurl.com/6j96zo

It covers How To Convert Your Car To Burn HYDROGEN To Cut Your Costs by 60%, Enhance Engine Power & Safety and Clean up The Environment...