Friday, February 06, 2009

ELECTRIC LEMONS

The Stumps old deep green lefty mate Jakartass
just cannot let go of the latest fantasty of the electric car as a viable option (option to what is transgender thing one suspects).. The Stump is sure this belief in fairys and electric cars is due to an ingestion of way too many mushrooms.

However to be fair, we sought out the lastest review of meanest, greeniest fanasty this month...

" (the) battery-powered Tesla sports car that I reviewed recently on Top Gear. Things didn’t go well. The company claimed it could run, even if driven briskly, for 200 miles, but after just a morning the battery power was down to 20%"

"Happily, the company had brought a second car along, so we switched to that. But after a while its motor began to overheat. And so, even though the first was not fully charged, we unplugged it — only to find that its brakes weren’t working properly. So then we had no cars."

" Tesla, when contacted by reporters, gave its account of what happened and it was exactly the same as ours. It explained that the brakes had stopped working because of a blown fuse and didn’t question at all our claim that the car would have run out of electricity after 55 miles."


Glad the Stump has kept the thunping V8 and thanks the numbnuts for bringing the price of fuel down. Speaking of fuel..

"wonky handling is nothing compared with this car’s big problems. First of all, it costs £90,000. This means it is three times more than the Lotus Elise"

"But if it’s running costs you are worried about, consider this. The £60,000 or so you save by buying an Elise would buy 15,000 gallons of fuel. Enough to take you round the world 20 times"

Catch the full article here ..rabid greens should only read in the company of a responsible adult..(sorry J)

7 comments:

Jakartass said...

O.

Electric vehicles have been plying British streets for the past 70+ years - generally looking like bajajs and delivering milk and groceries.

I've also criticised the way car companies which have been in thrall to the oil companies (and against public transport) have opted out of meaningful research into alternative fuels, alternatives to the finite resource which won't be available to our grandchildren. The shortage of oil will inevitably force its price upwards to last year's levels, and beyond.

Today (18.2.09) GM has announced the layoff of 47,000 workers. This is bad news for them and their families. Obama's administration will only bailout these profligate industries if they invest in environmentally better and longer-term technologies and face up to the problems they have largely brought on themselves That is good news.

That you focus on a demonstration of a trial technology which inevitably costs more than the average Joe can afford is an example of a blinkered imagination, O.

Weigh that against all the greater fortunes invested, and lost, in tooling up for expensive limited production cars, and you may allow, as I do, that in terms of electric-powered transport we are still in the age of the Wright Brothers and Bleriot, if I can mix my transport analogies.

There's no need to 'moderate' this post, O, you Luddite you. This isn't a rant. I reserve that for the notion of going nuclear.

oigal said...

Terrific..shame most of the world expects more from their vehicles than a london milk cart.

Price of oil..yea $200 a barrel oooh wait no its not $37.00.. But fair enough do tell us the cost of equal amount of energy (true cost now..not the greenie dream of not counting tax payer handouts).

Obama is already bailing them out, but you are confusing your greenie dream with poor management..and so really poor tarriff management.

Funny you are saying its a now just a trial vehicle and yet on your blog you spouted these performance fibs (or similiar ones) as gospel..Easy to defend a position if you don't take a stand huh?.

Mate, you have not addressed one issue here..just "ELECTRIC DREAMS"

Where does the power come from for the Cars?

Who funds it..(oh..let me guess)??

Who would buy one??

Meanwhile while you and the London milk drivers are saving the planet..what do you think India, China and Indonesia are doing..


Do let me know when your electric car can actually be driven by a human arrives won't you..

oigal said...

Do tell us about the effect of left wing radical unions on the car industry in USA..SHOULD BE HOOT..start with retirement (at 48) ticking time bomb

Jakartass said...

Mate.

Why don't you ever give links to back up your 'arguments' like I do?

As for letting you "know when your electric car can actually be driven by a human", just read your own previous sentence.

And as to what could power future electric cars - and I emphasise 'could' - google 'lithium*Bolivia*foreign car manufacturers in France and Japan' for part answers.

Jakartass said...

Mate.

Why don't you ever give links to back up your 'arguments' like I do?

As for letting you "know when your electric car can actually be driven by a human", just read your own previous sentence.

And as to what could power future electric cars - and I emphasise 'could' - google 'lithium*Bolivia*foreign car manufacturers in France and Japan' for part answers.

oigal said...

J,

Links.. what's the point, like all cults the rabid greens brook no questioning of the faith.

Reality is proof!! Have a long hard look around, see a production line of electric lemons anywhere. Reality is in the $$, if an electric car was viable and would make money then it would be made and perhaps one day it will but it aint there yet.

Meanwhile quaint little London and clogged ol Jakarta may well be fun to tool around in your taxpayer funded electric lemon but driving from Darwin to Adelaide in an electric car..magic mushroom time?

Meanwhile if you are serious about saving the planet..whats the plan for the big three polluters..India, Indonesia and China?

Electric car..feels good, does nothing designed for the latte loonies..

BTW..Speaking of power, give the me the link for the nice clean power for these vehicles (no cheating now, naming the wind power countries who so cunningly tap into their neighbours coal, nuclear and oil power stations when the wind does what is does and stops blowing.

oigal said...

Seriously tho, if you think anything I have said is factually incorrect rather than a different perspective than yours, let me know and I will chase a link for you..But I am not really interested in playing link wars..we can find anything we want on the web..jeez.. I can even find papers explaining why creationism is real?, along with the tooth fairy and santa.

But lets just take one example..You said because the auto industry did not make the electric lemons, they deserve to go bankrupt..strangely (although expected) you didn't mention things like..

"In the past few years, tens of thousands of autoworkers took early retirement as the auto companies used buyouts to drastically trim their workforces. Under the UAW contracts a worker can retire with a full pension after 30 years of service—though this is no longer the case for new hires. Hence, workers as young as 48 years of age, faced with the deterioration of their job situations and encouraged by the UAW leadership, took advantage of the buyouts and opted for early retirement." http://www.workers.org/2008/us/autoworkers_0717/

And yet these idiots (see the link) are still advocating more unfundable handout.

I would venture the left issue of the world owes me a living, unproductive union greed, executives living for the next bonus and refusing to take those hard steps (such as limiting unfunded pension plans) have a bloody sight more to do with Detriots troubles than not making an electric lemon for Brad Pitt to tool around in.