Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
Since you did not indicate that to be sarcasm I must assume you are affirming that it does not need to be proven that batteries are toxic and are the most expensive part of the car.
-
Discuss politics - join our community by registering for free here! HOP - the political discussion forum
Will gas cars die?
- Thread starter Dr.Who
- Start date
Since you did not indicate that to be sarcasm I must assume you are affirming that it does not need to be proven that batteries are toxic and are the most expensive part of the car.
Werbung:
Your typical dodge. Hello...Hello...? Are you still there or did your car battery blow up and kill you? Questions: How many hybrid car batteries have blown up on the cars currently using them? How many accidents have happened in nuclear plants? Electric car batteries are dangerous, nuclear plants are not?
clarkatticus
Well-Known Member
Run the damn cars on enslaved squirrels for all I care, as long as we no longer have to buy oil from abroad. Again, the question is not how we power our cars, it's how we quit using oil from unstable despotic religious fanatics (not talking about Pat Robertson, it's those a-rab guys)
clarkatticus
Well-Known Member
as to the question, "do batteries in cars explode?"--yes, but not reliably
That was not "the question". The question was, do modern, state of the art batteries as used in electric and hybrid cars pose any real explosion risk. Those are not the common lead-acid batteries used to start conventional gas-powered cars, wherein there is a slight risk of the hydrogen that is produced by such batteries exploding.
So what is the problem? When computers first were equipped with hard drives, hard drives were arguable the most expensive part of the computer...now with development of hard drives perfected, they are not expensive. And so will be as hybrids and electric cars are developed; the cost of the batteries will become cheaper.
All batteries are toxic...so what? They are only a problem if you eat them or do not recycle them. Large batteries as used in the applications I have listed will be recycled.
The biggest problems with current batteries is that they are expensive,and they don't last very long. Maybe technology can improve them, but right now I can't see how electric cars are very practical for most of us.
They will last 100,000 miles. I have never had a conventional gas vehicle last 100,000 miles.
As for replacement cost, the individual modules can be replaced at a current price of $138.00 per each (if and when they fail).
In all the life expectancy and the cost of replacing individual battery modules does not seem too expensive for the average person to afford. The negatives seem to be mostly propaganda.
From http://cars.about.com/cs/familysedans/a/hybrid_explain.htm
Some critics have questioned whether hybrids will be durable over the long run. Perhaps they should ask Vancouver BC's Andrew Grant, the world's first Toyota Prius taxi cab driver. After three years of daily use his Prius had logged over 180,000 miles with only a handful of minor problems. Grant has now purchased a new-generation Prius and more of these remarkable vehicles are being used by cab owners willing to take a chance on the technology.
Those same critics have insisted that if you replace the batteries after the warranty expires, it will most likely cost several thousand dollars. Toyota claims prices will drop as hybrids become more popular; battery packs currently run around $4900. However the pack contains 38 modules that can be replaced individually for $138.00 each. Honda's Insight and Civic hybrids have an 8-yr./80,000-mi. warranty on most of the powertrain, including batteries, and a three-year/36,000-mile warranty on the rest of the car. The Prius has an 8-yr./100,000-mi. warranty on the battery and hybrid systems, plus a three-year/36,000-mile warranty on everything else. The electric motors and batteries don't require maintenance over the life of the vehicle."
You must be buying the wrong models. I had a Honda Accord go nearly 200,000, then sold it to a friend who is still a friend and whose daughter used it to commute 30 miles one way to college for the next four years. I currently have a Toyota Tundra with 125,000 and so far only routine maintenance, and a Toyota Camry that is approaching the hundred thousand mark with the same history.
But, anyway, let's do a little math. Say you buy a hybrid for $25K, get an average of 50 mpg over a hundred K miles, and then replace the battery pack for $4,900. Let's say just for grins that the average cost of gas during that time is $6. Your total cost would be 25K for the car, plus $4,900 for the battery, plus 2,000 gallons of gas x $6 for $12,000 = $41,900 total cost. If the battery was still good, then the cost would be $37,000.
If you buy the gas model, which is also a sub compact for that cost and mileage, you might pay more like $15K for the car, then get only 30 mpg. My accord averaged that, and a Civic, which is more like what we're talking about here, should do better than that.
So, now we have $15K for the car, and more like 3,100 or so gallons of gas x $6 for a total of $33,600. Moreover, a Civic, or similar vehicle well cared for can easily go over 200K miles.
I just don't see how the hybrid, let alone the plug in which costs even more, is cost effective with today's technology.
Or, as most people do, sell/trade in the car after 80,000 or so miles and buy a new one. Then consider in the next few years, the technology will improve and become less expensive, the price of gas will continue to increase, etc. As I have said before, the technology of todays hybrids are arguably as crude as the first computers and WWI airplanes. The technology will and must improve with time. But it will not if the concept of hybrids is abandoned.
Dr. Who..I mean gas is a biproduct of oil..what will we do with it..LOL
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
If everybody is driving electric then the price of gas will be dirt cheap. We will put it in our semi-trailers.
Unless we find better evidence for fossil fuel caused global warming accompanies by consequences the gas is going to get burned. It is going to get burned.
TruthSeeker
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2011
- Messages
- 836
This lack of concern about the toxicity of batteries ("so what?") comes from our resident "chicken little" member, who uses his/her arsenal of "yeah buts" and "what ifs" to oppose nuclear power plants and fossil fuels and anything else that isn't "green" enough or "safe" enough to meet his/her criteria.
Hypocrisy rears it's ugly head again.
If and when the technology improves, then hybrids just might be able to compete with gas only cars. Who knows? Maybe all electric vehicles will become practical. Right now, I'm not looking to buy either one, but in the future, perhaps.
Driving a vehicle only 80,000 miles and then abandoning it or junking it is pretty expensive given the cost of a new car today. I'm driving mine until they die. Sometimes, I wish I still had my old Accord. It would have probably more than 400K miles by now if the daughter of the friend mentioned above hadn't wrecked it, and I'd be able to run it on alcohol.
It would be 21 years old now, and old enough to drink.
Werbung:
Nevertheless, there are people buying them and driving them now.
I watched an interview where that a person in the used car industry (I cannot remember the source), stated that the number 1 reason a person trades-in a car is the tires have become worn.Driving a vehicle only 80,000 miles and then abandoning it or junking it is pretty expensive given the cost of a new car today. I'm driving mine until they die. Sometimes, I wish I still had my old Accord. It would have probably more than 400K miles by now if the daughter of the friend mentioned above hadn't wrecked it, and I'd be able to run it on alcohol.
It would be 21 years old now, and old enough to drink.
I am a bottom feeder when it comes to vehicles. I have only purchased one that was not used. It turned out to be a lemon and I have never purchased a new one since.
I am used to driving "junkers" (with rust), and have always been amazed at the percentage of people (everybody except me, it seems), who drive late-model cars.
In short, most people seem not to want to drive cars "until they die", but only keep them until the bloom is off the rose, and would not be caught dead driving a car with apparent age, let alone high mileage, near death ones.
