Laughing at the price of gas
Electric car conversions are more frequent in
Randy Holmquist runs Canadian Electric Vehicles in Errington, B.C. and says he used to sell only one or two conversions a year. Now he's selling up to two a month. Cost is over $18,000, including the kit, batteries and installation. The best vehicles are Honda Civic, Toyota Echo, Chevy S-10 and Dodge Neon, Holmquist said. He's also performed the swap on a Citroen. The $3,000 batteries need to be replaced once every three years. A high-powered charging station such as ones used by airlines can recharge a vehicle in 20 minutes. A typical household outlet may take up to eight hours.
One of his customers, university professor Kimberly Kerns, says she's surprised why even more people aren't interested in electric vehicles.
"It's been blissful not to know what the price of gas is," the driver of an S-10 conversion says.
An official from the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association estimates an entire community of electric vehicles could run on 8,000 gigawatts of power each year.
{Source: Monday Magazine]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Howard Lee Harkness 12:28PM (9/08/2006)
The Chevy S10 would be about the right vehicle for me, so this is encouraging. However, instead of a straight EV, I would prefer a pluggable diesel/electric hybrid. Then a supercap bank could be used to reduce the maintenance cost of the batteries (using supercap to replace about half of batteries).
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Todd 12:34PM (9/08/2006)
"typical household outlet may take up to eight hours"
Too long as for me, but the problem will be solved as soon as a lot of charging stations are built.
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loikll 2:27PM (9/08/2006)
*** "It's been blissful not to know what the price of gas is," ***
Is that a joke? You're spending $18,000 and another $3000 in three years, plus some unstated amount extra on your utility bill, so as to not worry about that $100 or $200 a month in gasoline? I'll take the gasoline.
Buying a car built from scrath to be a good EV is questionable enough; but buying an internal combustion engine car and then spending an additional $18,000 to modify it into a mediocre electric car so as to not worry about that incremental cost of unleaded going up from $2.59 to $2.89 is beyond stupid.
This is SO far from being in any way economically justifiable or practical, it's absurd. If you're weak-minded enough to let the latest hollywood conspiracy claptrap cause you to flush $20,000 down the toilet, I guess you deserve it. Can't imagine what these people did after they saw "The Da Vinci Code"
*** Too long as for me, but the problem will be solved as soon as a lot of charging stations are built. ***
How will electric "gas stations" solve the problem that your car is inoperative for 5 or 6 hours after you've driven it only 80 miles or so? Are you going to stand around and stare at traffic for 6 hours while you refuel? Won't that cause a long line to build up? Every car I've ever driven could be refueled in about 3 minutes, which is one reason they are useful for actual, you know, transportation. Just curious as to how that will work.
If recharging with electricity is so cheap, who's going to bear the enormous capital expense of building out an infrastructure of electric stations? How could that be economical?
Oh wait -- are you suggesting every parking lot in the U.S. be rebuilt with charging posts at every parking spot? Wouldn't that cost about a quadrillion dollars and require us to mine Mars down to the size of a baseball?
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Tim Russell 2:33PM (9/08/2006)
So $1000/year battery cost + electricity cost. Many smaller cars have lower fuel costs. Pull the other one.
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Tim Russell 2:33PM (9/08/2006)
Oh and the big one 18Grand for the kit + donor vehicle cost. Sorry but you would have to be certifiable to think this is a good idea.
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GarethLH 7:01AM (9/10/2006)
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