Electric Car Buying Guide » batteries

Would you consider purchasing a Chevy Volt when it becomes available in the 2011 model year?

Joe — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:49:40 +0000

This is an all-electric car with a range of 40 miles-per-charge, and for longer trips, a small internal combustion engine recharges the batteries as you drive.

Electric cars how to create more energy than you consume?

Joe — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:23:26 +0000

Listening to all the talk about electric cars and how physics doesn’t allow alternators to renew their batteries leads me to ask a few BIG questions: How do we get the alternators to produce more energy than the car can consume? Also, Why can’t we make the axles work for us to turn the alternators using a drive shaft? Why wouldn’t stacking alternators work?

What is the point of hydrogen cars when the hydrogen is produced by electric?

Joe — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:35:15 +0000

and the electric (electrolysis) produced by coal/oil/nuclear/etc why not just have electric cars with a nice clean electric motor.
Batteries could be swapped at petrol stations so no need to wait.
Electricity also comes from solar.
I think industry is tooled up for the internal combustion engine petrol or hydrogen and are unwilling to change

Why do people think that electric cars will reduce air pollution?

Joe — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:10:58 +0000

If we’re talking about conventional electric cars that have to be plugged in, you have to consider how that electricity is being generated. The majority of power plants in this country are COAL-POWERED. If we all had electric cars, we wouldn’t have any exhaust coming out of the cars, but there would be a lot more coal being burned to generate the electricity to charge the cars’ batteries. So how does that reduce pollution?

How much nickel is mined for one hybrid car battery?

Joe — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:44:01 +0000

I am curious to know how much nickel is mined for the average hybrid car battery? I’ve heard hybrids toted as the solution, but nickel is a finite resource which must be mined. As I understand it the batteries are extremely heavy composed of mostly nickel.

Chevy Volt?

Joe — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:13:12 +0000

Do you think Chevy is really going to go into production for this concept car?

For those of you that don’t know about it, it is called a "plug-in hybrid". Plugging it in is optional. By plugging it in the wall socket at night, it recharges the batteries. This results in the first 40 miles being used entirely by batteries, meaning if your morning commute is less than 20 miles each way, you would never use a drop of gasoline. After 40 miles, the gasoline motor takes over propeling the car and recharging the batteries at the same time. In a 60 mile trip, you will probably average 150 mpg. If you do not choose to plug in the car, it has a range of about 640 miles on it’s 12 gallon tank. 0 to 60 in 8 seconds, 160 hp, 236 lbs torque, top speed of 120 mph.