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The Chevy Volt is not alone

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
It seems. The Ford Focus has been out for two months and sales are ZERO!

Hello!! Is anybody listening?? There is NO market for expensive, sub compact 40K pregnant roller skates right now. NONE!! Green does not wok! It is too expensive, pay back time is too long. Will this ever sink in to the Agitator-In-Chief and his band of boobers? I think not.

$40,000 for an electric Focus. $16,000 for a gasoline powered one. There is no payback time with those figures. None what so ever!!
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
It seems. The Ford Focus has been out for two months and sales are ZERO!

Hello!! Is anybody listening?? There is NO market for expensive, sub compact 40K pregnant roller skates right now. NONE!! Green does not wok! It is too expensive, pay back time is too long. Will this ever sink in to the Agitator-In-Chief and his band of boobers? I think not.

$40,000 for an electric Focus. $16,000 for a gasoline powered one. There is no payback time with those figures. None what so ever!!


B-b-b-but it's green! What an un-patriotic view of our need to save the planet.:yum::beatdeadhorse5:
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I didn't even know Ford made an electric car.
 

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
Unless one is a Hollyweird that has more money than brains and is trying to make some deluded political statement, most people are not going to spring for this kind of money just to be green. They can't afford it. There are other priorities in life right now. Like trying to make ends meet. The liberal rabble does not understand that. It was never taught at Harvard and Yale, it seems.
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
Unless one is a Hollyweird that has more money than brains and is trying to make some deluded political statement, most people are not going to spring for this kind of money just to be green. They can't afford it. There are other priorities in life right now. Like trying to make ends meet. The liberal rabble does not understand that. It was never taught at Harvard and Yale, it seems.


True. Besides, electric cars are not green. At least (pardon the pun) currently.

http://theconversation.edu.au/green-cars-electric-vehicles-are-marketing-a-myth-5186
 

waybomb

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
A simple man needs a simple answer. 107Kilowatt motor, and a 23 kwh battery, equals how far on charge?
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I dunno how far the little electric Ford goes, but its my understanding that the electric range of the Chevy Volt is about 25 miles, maybe a bit less. That said, I went into town today (pretty rare for me) and saw a Volt parked at the Chevy dealership. Our town limits are roughly 15 miles from the nearest movie theatre . . . so a 30 mile round trip in a car that can't go that far. Our town limits are about a dozen miles from the county seat. So, on a good day, you might be able to make it to the county courthouse and back, if the conditions are optimal?

I just don't see the real utility of these vehicles . . . especially in rural areas.
 

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
yup ! I didn't know either until I looked it up.

http://www.ford.com/cars/focus/trim/?trim=electric


107 kW electric motor
23kWh liquid-cooled Lithium Ion battery

1-speed automatic transmisison


MPG City/Hwy
110/99:wow:

That would be 110/99 MPGe. I am not sure at what cost per kilowatt hour for electricity versus what cost for gasoline that is based on. That is the new way (new to me anyway) of comparing between electric and gasoline. Miles Per Gallon equivalent.

Even so the range is only 100 miles as Franco pointed out. I have to believe a gasoline Focus would get around 40 MPG and have a range of 500 miles at least. One could never justify the added cost financially of buying the electric over gasoline. The added sticker price will preclude that.
 

SShepherd

New member
That would be 110/99 MPGe. I am not sure at what cost per kilowatt hour for electricity versus what cost for gasoline that is based on. That is the new way (new to me anyway) of comparing between electric and gasoline. Miles Per Gallon equivalent.

Even so the range is only 100 miles as Franco pointed out. I have to believe a gasoline Focus would get around 40 MPG and have a range of 500 miles at least. One could never justify the added cost financially of buying the electric over gasoline. The added sticker price will preclude that.
I copied and pasted directly from their website
 

Kane

New member
So, on a good day, you might be able to make it to the county courthouse and back, if the conditions are optimal?

I just don't see the real utility of these vehicles . . . especially in rural areas.
Just do not turn on the AC ... or especially that watt-hungry heater.
 

tiredretired

The Old Salt
SUPER Site Supporter
I copied and pasted directly from their website

Oh sure. No doubt. It is just when one is comparing gasoline mileage versus electric mileage and trying to figure in costs to make a knowledgable comparison, there are some variables involved.
 

Av8r3400

Gone Flyin'
How are any of these coal powered cars more green than my 11 year old, 200k mile clean diesel (that still gets 50 REAL mpg)?
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
We fire coal to boil water and runa steam turbine generator. This converts much but not all, of the heat to a differnt energy source/form; electricity.

Electricity produced by coal, NG or nuclear, is a "distilled" power source. It doe not heat efficiently and does not power a heavy vehicle with efficiency. Coverting it back to heat suffers a loss in transition and transmission.

It is a better form of energy from coal heat for lighting, communications. cooling and running small motors. But gasoline, NG and coal, when fired directly for heat or propulsion, work better.

Our solution to transportation may need to be a synthetic form of combustable fuel that directly replaces gasoline. Science fiction perhaps. But consider, that the electric car preceeded the internal combustion engine and that it failed to compete over 100 years ago.

Have the physical laws of energy conversion changed? More to the point, have the laws of the free market been changed?

There will come a time when the availability of useful crude will diminish and market forces will incourage technological changes. By most accounts, 2100 will see the end of usefully recoverable Crude.
This whether we burn it in our cars and trucks, or the Chineese, andthe rest of the world, do so in theirs.

If we look back at the history of the auto, it was not the government that created it's innovations and developement to the current form but consummer preferences. Private sector attempts rife with failure including attempts to power autos with steam(coal &LP), electricity, wood smoke,compressed air and a multitude of internal combustion power plants running on peanut oil, petroleum, NG and manure.

What has won the day? Gasoline and diesel. And though the carcasses of thousands of failures litter the history of the automoble's evolution, we have a current winner.

Electric ain't it. Not just yet anyway.

I would suggest that we let natural market forces bring the electric vehicle to it's potential, not government mandates which actually stifle innovation. Ford may be onto somethingbut so far, the public doesn't get it. It is up to Ford, not Obama, to make the sale.
 

jimbo

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
We fire coal to boil water and runa steam turbine generator. This converts much but not all, of the heat to a differnt energy source/form; electricity.

Electricity produced by coal, NG or nuclear, is a "distilled" power source. It doe not heat efficiently and does not power a heavy vehicle with efficiency. Coverting it back to heat suffers a loss in transition and transmission.

It is a better form of energy from coal heat for lighting, communications. cooling and running small motors. But gasoline, NG and coal, when fired directly for heat or propulsion, work better.

Our solution to transportation may need to be a synthetic form of combustable fuel that directly replaces gasoline. Science fiction perhaps. But consider, that the electric car preceeded the internal combustion engine and that it failed to compete over 100 years ago.

Have the physical laws of energy conversion changed? More to the point, have the laws of the free market been changed?

There will come a time when the availability of useful crude will diminish and market forces will incourage technological changes. By most accounts, 2100 will see the end of usefully recoverable Crude.
This whether we burn it in our cars and trucks, or the Chineese, andthe rest of the world, do so in theirs.

If we look back at the history of the auto, it was not the government that created it's innovations and developement to the current form but consummer preferences. Private sector attempts rife with failure including attempts to power autos with steam(coal &LP), electricity, wood smoke,compressed air and a multitude of internal combustion power plants running on peanut oil, petroleum, NG and manure.

What has won the day? Gasoline and diesel. And though the carcasses of thousands of failures litter the history of the automoble's evolution, we have a current winner.

Electric ain't it. Not just yet anyway.

I would suggest that we let natural market forces bring the electric vehicle to it's potential, not government mandates which actually stifle innovation. Ford may be onto somethingbut so far, the public doesn't get it. It is up to Ford, not Obama, to make the sale.

I think you are dead on with your analysis. The early Fords were designed to run on alcohol and Henry made available a set of instructions for building your own still. Gasoline won out. Electrics were among the early contenders.

The only advantage of electricity is that is it easliy transportable, and that advantage goes out the window if you build a 3000 pound transporter to move it around.

There will, sooner or later, be another source of energy, and it may or may not look like the choices today. Meanwhile, there is plenty of fossil fuel available, and private enterprise will search out the alternatives. Private enterprise invented the automobile, gasoline, electricity, and has thousands of ideas in its wastebasket.
 
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