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another day, another step along the way. This time it's Mitsubishi -

 

"...The company plans to conduct test drives using the batteries in prototype vehicles by as early as next year. MHI showed a prototype electric vehicle powered by li-ion batteries last year at the Renewable Energy 2006 International Exhibition in Japan. The company also reportedly plans to develop electric motors for cars, with the intention of packaging batteries and motors together..."

 

 

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/re...subis.html#more

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another day, another step along the way. This time it's Mitsubishi -

 

"...The company plans to conduct test drives using the batteries in prototype vehicles by as early as next year. MHI showed a prototype electric vehicle powered by li-ion batteries last year at the Renewable Energy 2006 International Exhibition in Japan. The company also reportedly plans to develop electric motors for cars, with the intention of packaging batteries and motors together..."

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/re...subis.html#more

City centres will love them. The planet will hate them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
why not scrap the electric cars all togather and replace it with a high speed water driven turbine engine on a hydrulic transmitiona lot easyer than anyone thinks aswell as less maintinace and no biproduct clean enough energy??

 

because you need a power source to turn the turbine, give it up.

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why not scrap the electric cars all togather and replace it with a high speed water driven turbine engine on a hydrulic transmitiona lot easyer than anyone thinks aswell as less maintinace and no biproduct clean enough energy??

Wasn't there some engine built in France that ran off compressed air?

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compressed air does not have the power water or liquid of some kind i made an air engine when i was in grade 9 it ranon 30psi it was 5 hp briggs n strattin

 

Let me guess, you're selling it and if anyone requires proof they can email you for a crappy MS-paint picture of the engine?

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It always surprises me that electric cars get such a good press. They are horribly ungreen unless the electricity is generated from a renewable source.

 

I would not say that they are exactly horribly ungreen. As these cars show, electric cars tend to be much lighter and less wasteful than IC cars. Their exhaust is far away at the power station rather than in schoolkids' faces.

 

The process of manufacturing, recycling and disposing of the batteries does deserve more attantion than it gets, in terms of heavy metals pollution and the CO2 produced by the sophisticated processes required to produce batteries. I have never seen a study that takes this into account.

 

I don't think people are all that enthusiastic about electric cars, they are just more enthusiastic about them than push-bikes.

 

There is a big difference between petrol and diesel engine efficiency, especially in the urban cycle. Petrol engines have to be throttled, because you can't alter the air-fuel ratio much or it causes combustion problems. The throttling causes very poor efficiency if the engine is driven at low loads a lot, as it is in town. I suspect that electric cars do give petrol engines a run for their money in town driving, other things being equal, despite transmission losses for electric cars.

 

For diesels it is a different story, because they have a fuel rack rather than a throttle. This is because it does not matter if the air-fuel ratio varies over a wide range (in which respect diesels are rather like gas turbines). The whole set-up is much stronger, runs at much higher thermodynamic conditions and is much heavier, but efficiency is far higher in town.

 

Biodiesels would be just great if you could make the stuff in quantity without sending up grain prices and causing starvation in the Third World, and if you could grow it without large inputs of fossil fuels in various forms. Apparently there are algae that have a large oil content and can in theory yield large amounts of biodiesel from solar energy. It is just that nobody has actually demonstrated the technology at any scale. It may hold great potential. We shall just have to see.

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JBFTI - Yes there is a French company developing compressed air cars. In fact there is news this week:

 

Tata Motors, India's largest automobile company, has signed an agreement with MDI (Moteur Developpment International) of France for the application in India of MDI's compressed air engines. MDI has already applied its CAT (Compressed Air Technology) engine in a prototype city car, the MiniCAT. The agreement between Tata Motors and MDI envisages Tata supporting further development and refinement of the technology, and its application and licensing for India...

 

Full story at http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/02/ta...s_sig.html#more

 

MDI website http://www.theaircar.com/

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  • 3 months later...

BUMP

 

Knew nothing about the G-Whiz (sp?) until I saw it on BBC news the other day. Quite a bad bit of press, unless you're trying to sell top gear magazine. Plenty of safety concerns in the event of a crash. Was quite a misleading piece given how it didn't (as far as i can recall) state the speed required to hit an immobile object and create the carnage it showed (a few times). However a spokesman pointed out many london users would not be averaging much in terms of mph, but by then though I think the damage was done.

Guess the real message was "buy a 4x4" and swat these silly motors like a bug on your neck. Bizarre.

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  • 1 month later...

Tesla Roadster as tested by Jay Leno.

 

"Would I buy one? Well yes, I would be interested in it. Right now they’re $100,000, so consequently it’s something rich people would buy. But most new technology starts out with rich people. Antilock brakes started out on the big Cadillacs and Lincolns. They didn’t start out on economy cars. To start with it’s the rich buyers that can absorb the cost. Anybody who buys a Tesla now is making a statement about buying responsibly. It’s a way to make a high performance statement for the new millennium."

 

Vital statistics

 

Model Tesla Roadster

 

Engine Electric motor powered by lithium-ion battery

 

Power 248bhp @ 8000rpm

 

Torque 200 lb ft @ 0-6000rpm

 

Transmission Two-speed manual

 

CO2 n/a

 

Acceleration 0-60mph: 4sec

 

Top speed 130mph

 

Price $98,000 (£48,600)

 

Verdict Electrifying proof there’s life after oil

 

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_...icle2036260.ece

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The Tesla will have the same problems of any electric car, lack of endurance.

 

You can achieve electric performance via over-kill. At the end of WW2 Germany developed a revolutionary submarine called the Type 21, which was about twice as fast submerged as typical designs had been (top speed of 17 knots versus 8-9 knots). But this was not through any techically radical breakthrough, it was just with bigger motors and a huge battery. What surprises me is that the military diesel/electric submarines being built today are still heavily related to the Type 21. The real innovation would be in submarines, not cars. The fact that it has not happened is to my mind the strongest evidence that the various permutations we are now seeing are just variations on a theme, rather than real progress.

 

Likewise with the Tesla. It has a big motor and a big battery - and it still has all the problems, including the letterbox view of a sports car. I can think of else to do with fifty grand, like get a decent turbo-diesel Merc.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Tesla all-electric Roadster to hit road by year end

Late transmission change delayed launch, but CEO says $100,000 car will ship this fall.

August 8 2007: 12:15 AM EDT

 

 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Tesla Motors' all-electric Roadster sports car will start rolling out to nearly 600 buyers lined up for the $100,000 vehicle by October or November, after a slight delay, the company's chief said on Tuesday.

 

"We will definitely ship in that time frame," CEO and co-founder Martin Eberhard told Reuters at a meeting of the Motor Press Guild, noting that the company had originally expected to begin deliveries during the summer.

 

Getting past the Prius

The shapely two-seaters are being assembled by Lotus Engineering in England, with motors manufactured by Tesla in Taiwan and battery packs made in Thailand with 6,831 individual lithium ion cells from Japan.

 

A late change in the transmission vendor "was a big thing for us to do in the program, very painful, and one of the things that has driven us into a little later this year release of the car," Eberhard said.

 

The Silicon Valley-based Tesla has pre-sold 570 cars to the likes of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for his wife Maria Shriver, and actor George Clooney. The company will make 1,000 2008 model year cars.

 

The Roadster, which has a base price of $98,000, can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 4 seconds and has a range of more than 200 miles on a single charge on a household plug.

 

Investors beckoning

Eberhard and co-founder Marc Tarpenning launched Tesla in 2003 with the idea of making a high-performance electric vehicle and then branching out to more affordable cars later on.

 

Since then, Tesla has secured $105 million in funding, with PayPal founder and space industrialist Elon Musk leading the way and venture capital firms joining in recent funding rounds.

 

With delivery of the car approaching, Eberhard said: "We have a lot more interest in investing in this company recently."

 

Eberhard said that if they just limited production to the Roadster, Tesla would be making a profit in 2008.

 

"But Tesla's intention has always been to grow to be a full-fledged car company as quickly as we can do that," he said.

 

"We are taking everything we earn from the Roadster and everything we have raised from outside sources to build the next model car."

 

The next car will be the White Star, a five-passenger sedan with a price point of $50,000 to $65,000, to be manufactured in New Mexico.

 

"We are in the very early stages of it," said Eberhard, noting that he "would not place any bets" on a target of a 2010 model year.

 

That same year, General Motors Corp is supposed to launch the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric vehicle with a small combustion "range extender" engine.

 

GM is shooting for a popular price, over $20,000, with a battery that costs around $3,000.

 

Tesla wants to keep moving down the chain to a more affordable car and could end up competing with the Volt. But Eberhard said he is skeptical GM's second attempt for an electric car will come to fruition, at least at that price point, mostly because of battery challenges.

 

"If I sell 10,000 White Stars, it will be a screaming success for me," he said. "But 10,000 Chevys sold would be a disaster."

 

Tesla plans to open two stores, in Los Angeles and in Menlo Park in Northern California, and will expand later to the U.S. East Coast and Midwest.

 

@: http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/08/autos/bc.t...oney_topstories

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The real innovation would be in submarines, not cars. The fact that it has not happened is to my mind the strongest evidence that the various permutations we are now seeing are just variations on a theme, rather than real progress.

 

there have been developments in fly by wire etc. which in theory should make an electric car more efficient/lighter now then say 20 years ago.

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GM to begin testing Volt electric car by spring

Product chief Bob Lutz says the plug-in vehicle is on track for production in 2010.

August 9 2007: 1:49 PM EDT

 

 

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Reuters) -- General Motors Corp. will begin road testing its Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid in the spring of next year and remains on track to produce the rechargeable car by late 2010, a senior executive said Thursday.

 

As the race to bring a mass-market, rechargeable electric vehicle to the market heats up, GM's global product chief Bob Lutz said he expects to have next-generation lithium-ion battery packs ready for the vehicles by October this year.

 

"We should have the battery packs by October," he said, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference. "We'll have some on the road for testing next spring, and we should have the Volt in production by the end of 2010."

 

GM (up $0.22 to $35.04, Charts, Fortune 500) is the only automaker to have provided a timeline on the production of a plug-in hybrid vehicle, even though other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. (down $0.38 to $8.49, Charts, Fortune 500) and Toyota Motor Corp. (down $3.33 to $119.89, Charts) are working on similar technology.

 

Automakers have said lithium-ion battery technology remains the biggest challenge in producing a plug-in vehicle as they try to lower the cost of the batteries and increase their power and storage capacity.

 

Toyota to road test plug-in hybrid

The current generation of lithium-ion batteries, used in devices such as laptop computers and electronic devices, also has a tendency to overheat.

 

The Volt would be outfitted with new lithium-ion battery packs, which hold a charge longer than the nickel metal hydride batteries now used widely in automobiles.

 

"The cost of the battery would likely be high even at the time of production," Lutz said, adding that GM is exploring options that would allow consumers to lease the battery when buying the vehicle in order to bring down the sticker price.

 

Unlike earlier gasoline-electric hybrids, which run on a parallel system twinning battery power and a combustion engine, plug-in cars are designed to allow short trips powered entirely by the electric motor, using a battery that can be charged through an electric socket at home.

 

GM is designing the highly-anticipated Volt to run 40 miles on battery power alone, reducing or even eliminating the need for drivers to fuel up an on-board gasoline-powered engine provided as a backup power source.

 

Lutz said GM is requiring a 10-year life for the battery, and said the No. 1 U.S. automaker would look to price the vehicle like a "traditional mid-market car."

 

GM is racing rival Toyota to offer the first mass-market electric vehicle. Toyota last month unveiled a "plug-in" car based on its popular Prius hybrid model, saying it would test the fuel-saving vehicle on public roads - a first for the industry.

 

-more: http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/09/autos/gm_e...oney_topstories

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  • 6 months later...
It always surprises me that electric cars get such a good press. They are horribly ungreen unless the electricity is generated from a renewable source.

 

 

Exactly. It borders on silly. People think they are going green because they plug in their car. 51% of power generation is coal. Less than 1% is solar and wind COMBINED. Plug in the car and you're likely burning coal somewhere else.

 

The Tesla roadster, assuming the new high-efficiency (58%) power generating plants, can get up to 65 MPG (gasoline equivalent). Assuming the older style plants, it's only 35 mpg. That's admittedly pretty good, but the same as a Prius. I really wonder what the battery range, and thus energy used per mile, is in the real world? I have heard that if you try one of those 4 second 0-60 runs, the battery is about 10% drained right there. I haven't confirmed this. It should be a simple calculation considering efficiency at full throttle and work done; and taking into consideration the min and max charge levels for the battery.

 

Considering how much energy is currently used each day to run our vehicles (37 TRILLION BTUs every day!!); if the plan is to really switch from burning fuel on-site (internal combustion) to using a battery, with energy created centrally, then the electrical demand from the grid will be astronomical. If this is to be our future, then Warren Buffet was absolutely correct to start buying railroads and rail equipment. The demand for coal will continue to SKYROCKET. Nat. gas will also, but only as long as prices stay low enough. If they get too high, we switch right back to coal.

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Exactly. It borders on silly. People think they are going green because they plug in their car. 51% of power generation is coal. Less than 1% is solar and wind COMBINED. Plug in the car and you're likely burning coal somewhere else.

 

Electric cars are not the answer.

Hybrid cars are not the answer.

Getting rid of cars are the answer - CARS ARE LAST - CAL !

 

We need to redesign our living, working, and transporting arrangement -

as we move into a sustainable post-Suburban world

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Electric cars are not the answer.

Hybrid cars are not the answer.

Getting rid of cars are the answer - CARS ARE LAST - CAL !

 

We need to redesign our living, working, and transporting arrangement -

as we move into a sustainable post-Suburban world

 

Agreed; but, humans will do what humans want to do, until it is more PAINFUL to keep doing it rather than changing. It's that simple. Humans all also get to vote (in one form or another). Therefore, policy makers will also tend to structure things in a manner consistent with what the masses want. It used to be that only American had the audacity to own cars and drive to the store when they need a packet of sugar. Now, everyone wants to be like us. Converting something into energy in order to do work (drive a car) will continue to be the key. The battery (fossil fuel) that was charged by the sun over 200m years is being depleted. The low hanging fruit is running out. Next is the harder to reach stuff. Eventually, humans will have to find a way of "eating".

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  • 9 months later...

Electric vehicles expected to dominate market by 2030

 

As 45% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation, there will be no solution to climate change without a replacement for the internal combustion engine. The Tesla two-seat Roadster is a high performance electric sports-car with a $109,000 price tag. Tesla’s Roadster does 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds and can go 250 miles on a $2.50 electricity charge. It effectively covers the high-end electric vehicle (EV) market. The last weeks saw several developments indicating that more affordable EVs are near, with market domination expected by 2030.

Nissan announced 10 days ago it had signed agreements with the governors of Oregon and Tennessee for a limited release of its EV in 2010. "It's a brand-new, ground-up vehicle, well designed, with all the amenities, crash-tested,” said Oregon Gov. Perry. His state is already building charging stations and Tennessee is the site of Nissan’s US headquarters and one of its two US factories. The first EVs will be for “government and commercial fleets” in those states and will help iron out any problems.

Last Tuesday, Nissan/Renault announced it had signed a similar agreement with Portugal, delivery beginning in 2011. In return, Portugal agreed to build 1300 charging stations and target 20% EVs for its government fleet. Nissan/Renault has signed similar contracts with Israel, Denmark and Japan's Kanagawa prefecture. Mass-marketing of the EV will begin in 2012.

 

In an interview on the same day, Nissan/Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn said his EV without battery would cost the same as a conventional car. The battery would be leased at a monthly fee, which along with recharging costs would be on par with fuel costs for conventional vehicles. When questioned about the battery’s short range, reported at 100 miles, Ghosn said that will improve with time. "If you wait for the perfect battery, you wait till 2030." Nissan/Renault has an agreement with Better Place, an Israeli based company, to develop a worldwide presence to lease EV batteries and build networks of stations for battery exchange and re-charge to extend the driving range.

 

Ghosn believes EVs could account for 10% of global motor vehicle demand by 2020 and 50% by 2030. If Nissan/Renault’s EV engineering is as good as this pre-rollout, they will dominate that growing market.

BMW unveiled its city EV on 20 November. The two-seat Mini E runs on a lithium-ion battery, gets up to 150 miles per charge and recharges in 4.5 hours. BMW will place 500 EV Minis in California, New York, New Jersey US and Berlin Germany by March. The leasing fees are $850 a month, $500 more than its Mini Cooper S. The high leasing price puts the Mini E in a luxury-car price range as it includes the cost of a fixed battery. If this is the case, Nissan/Renault’s EV with its low entry price and a leased battery could have an advantage, even with a later market entry.

 

San Francisco EV capital of US

 

At a press conference last Thursday, mayors of 3 San Francisco Bay Area cities announced public-private investments to establish the area as the “EV Capital of the U.S.” The mayors are teaming up with Better Place, a Nissan partner, to build an open network to service fixed- and exchange-battery vehicles to enable long-distance trips. Better Place says the EV stations will be installed by 2012. The San Francisco Bay Area is the home of Tesla.

 

Ireland targets 40% EV by 2030

 

The Irish government announced a target last Wednesday of 10% EV by 2020 and 40 % by 2030. The announcement by Irish Energy Minister Eamon Ryan of the Green Party, said the ultimate target was "to switch our transport system off oil." Ryan said Ireland was well suited to switch because of its size. A charged battery would travel 160 km, enough to get from Dublin on the east coast to Galway on the west coast.

 

Utilities to push EV

 

US power companies are planning to buy several thousand EVs and plug-in hybrids in bulk to maximise night-time revenues. Most of the cars would be used in service fleets, but some could be made available to company employees and even to customers. Top executives at a half-dozen power companies have been informally discussing a collective purchase for the past six months, said Bill Johnson, chief executive for Progress Energy in Raleigh NC.

The strategy would allow two of the nation's biggest polluters, the utility sector and auto industry to reduce GHG emissions. The move would chip away at the global energy dynamic by shifting fuel sales from foreign oil nations to local electric utilities.

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  • 3 months later...

An electric car stores its energy on board—typically in batteries, but alternatively with capacitors or flywheel storage devices. Or it may generate energy using a fuel cell or generator. A fuel cell is a specialized form of battery that combines hydrogen with oxygen in a chemical reaction that produces electricity and water vapor. Unlike an electric cell or battery, a fuel cell does not run down or require recharging; it operates as long as the fuel and an oxidizer are supplied continuously from outside the cell. Most current versions of electric cars use some combination of these energy sources. “Pure” electric cars, however, run only on batteries and need a charger to replenish the battery's power from an electrical outlet.

 

The hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) uses both an electric motor or motors and a gasoline or diesel engine to extend the car’s range and often to provide additional power. A conventional HEV, such as the Toyota Prius, uses battery power up to certain speeds and the gasoline engine for higher speeds, and can draw on both power sources if needed. The batteries are recharged by the gasoline engine, which acts as a generator, and in most models by the energy generated from braking. Another type of HEV, known as a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), uses an extra battery or batteries to extend the range of the vehicle. The PHEV can be plugged into a typical 120-volt electric outlet, like those found in most households, for a recharge. Regardless of the energy source, an electric car needs a controller, which is connected to the accelerator pedal, for directing the flow of electricity from the energy source to the motor.

 

Most electric cars use lead-acid batteries, but new types of batteries, including zinc-chlorine, nickel metal hydride, and sodium-sulfur, are becoming more common. The conventional HEV uses nickel metal hydride, while some automakers contemplate using lithium-ion batteries; General Motors, for example, may use these in their hybrid electric vehicle prototype known as the Volt. The motor of an electric car harnesses the battery's electrical energy by converting it to kinetic energy. The driver simply switches on the power, selects “Forward” or “Reverse” with another switch, and steps on the accelerator pedal.

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  • 1 month later...

Look at ZENN Motors Co. {ZNN.V Venture Exchange Toronto} stock is on the move. Looks Like the EESTOR capacitor is on it's way out into production on time this fall/09. Not a battery but a Capacitor. The amps equal the size of the cap (farads) times the change in volts divided by time it discharged.

i = c * Dv/Dt

Biggest invention of the 21st century will be ultracaps.

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  • 1 month later...

You sure should have included our new ambient temperature retrofit for electrics and hybrids, with our unit on a Toyota hybrid we made over 4700 miles without running the gas engine or plugging in, as well we took a low cost electric scooter made in China that was capable of 35 to 40 miles on an 8 hour charge my kids drove it around the yard for over 1200 miles and never plugged it in, our system can run anything from a cell phone or ipod to a locomotive or small city, no hazardous materials, no fuels, easy and low cost to manufacture, the only issue we have found is we have shown, proven, videoed, jumped through hoops to find 850K funding to get launched and everyone wants to own control other that we can get funding from China any time or we can sell outright to the Saudi's and let it get buried, and at this point we are close to making the decision to sell out and let it get shelved.

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  • 2 weeks later...

prototype launched today - London UK - open source !!!!!

 

............ but so many false starts - how far will this one get I wonder....

 

Still its a step in the right direction

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1731...ref=online-news

 

 

A concept car that attempts to sidestep the three main hurdles to the dream of hydrogen-fuelled highways was unveiled in London, UK, today.

 

Like other hydrogen cars, the Riversimple Urban Car (RUC) is powered by a fuel cell that combines hydrogen with oxygen from the air to release energy and nothing more toxic than water.

 

Its makers claim that by starting from scratch to build a small, efficient car they can make it commercially viable more quickly than the major auto manufacturers experimenting with adapting more conventional cars to hydrogen. Honda predicts its FCX Clarity hydrogen car will enter mass production in 2018, but Riversimple is aiming to lease its first fleet in 2011 and mass produce in 2013.

 

see New Scientist website for rest of article

 

If you're now hoping to be the first RUC owner on your street, you're in for a disappointment. The car will not be on public sale, but instead will be leased. "That means we are driven to encourage people to keep them for as long as possible rather than replacing their vehicle quickly, as is usual in the car business," says Spowers.

 

He hopes to lease the first fleet in 2011, in a small UK city. The leasing cost will include free access to a dedicated hydrogen station operated by the company and is predicted to be around £200 ($330) a month.

 

----------------------------

+ see also

 

http://www.riversimple.com/LatestNews.aspx

 

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  • 9 months later...
Electric cars are not the answer.

Hybrid cars are not the answer.

Getting rid of cars are the answer - CARS ARE LAST - CAL !

 

We need to redesign our living, working, and transporting arrangement -

as we move into a sustainable post-Suburban world

 

I so agree with this. If we could take some of our focus away from the individual cars, and turn that focus to efficient, low carbon-footprint public transportation - we'd all be in better shape. If only we could work on taking away some of that human-bred pride, we might be in good shape! :lol:

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