Not a very promising start for Nissan's All-electric Car

It appears that range predictions for the Nissan Leaf were a little optimistic.
A Leaf of faith: Owners report getting stranded - Technology & science - Tech and gadgets - Auto Tech - msnbc.com

Why would anyone spend $40K for a car that can barely go 100 miles before it conks out? I can buy a nice comfortable mid sized auto for $25K and use the other $15K for whatever including fuel over the years. You also have to take into account the cost for electric energy to recharge those high capacity cells. So what are the savings?

That's what bugs me too! For the price of a Volt, you can buy a much better equipped car for less, and still have enough money to cover all of the gas that you could possibly need for the car's life. Electric cars are a..."scam"...for now.

What's wrong with motorcycles? If you are that petrified of wasting gas, take a hike, because clearly, you're not doing it to save money...if you were smart.

Hybrids, that's a different story.

chscag said:

Why would anyone spend $40K for a car that can barely go 100 miles before it conks out? I can buy a nice comfortable mid sized auto for $25K and use the other $15K for whatever including fuel over the years. You also have to take into account the cost for electric energy to recharge those high capacity cells. So what are the savings?

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I agree!
The green part of me likes the idea of electric cars but they just don't make sense right now. My monthly gasoline bill for both of our cars combined is about $250 which works out to $3000/year.
Using your figures the saved money would pay for 5 years worth of gasoline (longer if you base it on just one car).

chscag said:

You also have to take into account the cost for electric energy to recharge those high capacity cells. So what are the savings?

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According to Nissan's studies (probably suspect at this point), the electricity required to charge the car over it's life time (5-8 years) would burn less fossil fuel to generate than a compatible fuel efficient gasoline engine. Because that power can come from sources other than petroleum based products (Coal, solar, wind, Nuke, green etc) the numbers get kind of murky as you go. Needless to say I am not convinced, but that is just me.

chscag said:

Why would anyone spend $40K for a car that can barely go 100 miles before it conks out? I can buy a nice comfortable mid sized auto for $25K and use the other $15K for whatever including fuel over the years. You also have to take into account the cost for electric energy to recharge those high capacity cells. So what are the savings?

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It's a catch-22 because the savings will come if or when electric cars become mass produced and cost the same or less than current fossil fueled cars. Of course in order for this to happen there needs to be pioneers who are willing to pay for it. Also there are people who have solar panels on their houses and I can see that these people will probably pay little or nothing to charge their electric cars so that's a major savings once the cost of electric cars come down.

A perfect example of this catch-22 are SSD for computers. If we all waited for them to come down in prices then they never will because they can't be mass produced.

In my opinion we as a society will need to change over to something else eventually because as fossil fuel becomes more rare or when oil producing nations stops selling oil at reasonable prices that make the cost of electric cars seem reasonable then we will be in trouble. I don't really like the thought of paying $10 or more a gallon for gasoline. My automotive fuel costs are already high as it is and I drive a fuel efficient car.

Clean energy is definitely going to be a problem for decades to come. >_<"

While there are strides in technology it's not being adopted fast enough or even cost effective. Just makes more sense to use old technology that pollutes the Earth more and more. >_>"

It will cost more, and waste more fossil fuel trashing all of the old cars than it would to keep them running, even the big old American Gas Guzzlers. It's all a big political scam if you ask me.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Please search the forums before you post something like this! We get this same question over and over again. "My battery is not lasting as long as claimed, how do I fix it?!"

Jeez. Here's the link. Go wild, Leaf owners:

Calibrating your battery for best performance

technologist said:

Oh, for heaven's sake. Please search the forums before you post something like this! We get this same question over and over again. "My battery is not lasting as long as claimed, how do I fix it?!"

Jeez. Here's the link. Go wild, Leaf owners:

Calibrating your battery for best performance

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Lol, very good my friend.

Kevriano said:

It will cost more, and waste more fossil fuel trashing all of the old cars than it would to keep them running, even the big old American Gas Guzzlers. It's all a big political scam if you ask me.

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That may be true but it is a one time expenditure per-vehicle and then it's done. At some point though you reach a period where "the big american gas guzzlers" are gone one way or the other and the balance swings the other way. Frankly, the term "gas guzzler" in my mind applies to those big cars made in the 60s and 70s that got 5 gallons to the mile. Those are long gone and even my SUV gets 20 MPG so the expenditure of which you speak, while big, is inevitable if only because of age and advancements in technology.

idrinorbarsaku said:

Hybrids, that's a different story.

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Yeah, I've heard that the energy required to produce the batteries is very eco-unfriendly.

adrecisL said:

Gas prices are in the stratosphere, which means more people than ever are looking into alternative fuel choices. I thought that using an electric car would be a great idea thinking that it would help me save some money. But after reading this thread and all the replies I realize that what I thought was not really true. Maybe it would be better if I use Biodiesel fuel which I heard can even be made at home. Getting set up can be pricey, but the long-term savings are worth the trouble. I found this here: Make your own biodiesel fuel and save big money. How I wish it's really a better idea.

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I've thought for a long time (well maybe not that long) that what we need is for someone to combine Liposuction with Bio-diesel conversion, most of us are carrying around enough fuel to drive halfway accross the country, and we would also lose weight, thereby improving our health in the process.

It truely is a win-win scenario.

What makes me not believe all this trouble about increasing fuel prices due to wars, and running out, all has to do with the fact that gas prices have sky rocketed due to war country being attacked, when that country contributes, AT MOST, 2% of their oil to the US! That's is BS in my opinion. The big oil companies have found the secret of blaming oil price hikes of feuds and mid-eastern turmoil...while at the same time, they hold tanker reserves from reaching their drop-off points because they can cause the price to go up by decreasing quantity. In my opinion, this is humanities largest scam, and no one is doing anything about it because of all those powerful lobbyists that walk the White House's streets, day in, day out! You can make all the electric cars you want, there will always be a bigger group of lobbyists that will do something to eliminate them. Remember the days when GM and Honda actually had amazing hybrid technology back in the day. Those went away because of lobbyists.

The only problem here is that people are bound to oil. Only a few can really relinquish their need for it, and even fewer have the means to use any form of alternative energy. It's a shame, really.

When I dream of how the US can be great, I envision them giving all the middle-eastern countries the big 2 birds...because they didn't need their dirty oil anymore.

those were two very shiny pennies c:

Automobile carbon footprint - Cuba

As I understand it, Cuba's car population consists very largely of 1950's American gas guzzlers. Although they undoubtedly use more fuel than a modern car, they have used up very little else of the world's natural resources either directly or indirectly( shipping , logistics, mining, manufacturing, production etc) over five or six decades. I wonder how Cuba's automobile carbon footprint per capita compares with that of modern industrialised countries. My guess is that it is far lower and I do question how "green" some of the recent hybrid and electric cars really are in the long term. By the way, $3.50 a gallon for gasolene is close to being free by UK standards where it is around $10 a gallon.

The problem is that the US does not have the type of mass transit system that you have in the UK or a country like Japan. Our larger cities, New York comes to mind, do have good mass transit, but consider how large the US is compared to the UK or Japan. Auto travel is a must. High fuel prices are devastating.

I remember living in NYC when I was younger. Going on the train was normal. Back in '95-'96, you would just drop in $.75, and you could just "ride the rails". We would do it just for fun. I love the feeling of a train coasting over a gradual hill. Thing is, for some reason, people hate to even think of traveling by train. I don't know why. Maybe it's the media-crazy stories about a derailed train that makes the headlines. Or a serial killer that goes crazy in one. I don't know. But what I do know is that trains can be made to cut costs of what it would have amounted to if each person were to take their own car to their destination. I like traveling to a place, and just relaxing...that's only something I've been able to do on a plane. If only it weren't so costly to start up with a good rail infrastructure system. All of our current systems are really lacking in reliability, especially for higher speed trains.

In my opinion, transportation, and better schooling are the top 2 key things that make a country succeed.