the end of cars as we know them?

[RedMazda121]

I'm sure that most of you have, in one time or another, read an article or watched a doumentary etc. etc. on electric cars or cars using alternative enegy.

Electric cars... just my toughts, unless these cars totally generate their own battery energy, they need to be electrically charged, thus needing electricity powered from an electrical powerplant/powerstation resulting in less harmfull gases on the roads and more out of the powerstation.

That is unless the charging points regenerate their own electricity.

So here is Picture 2:

* If it a household charging point, we are nowere near a point in which todays environmental friendly technological house can generate all its electricity from sun or wind, furthur more, certainly not all year round... now add a car to your meter...

* If it's an energy self generator point on the street, how much point would we need to service the number of cars in Malta?

*Ok lets exchange all petrol stations in Malta for Electrical Charging Points....vs the number of Cars in Malta. Catastrophy. Double or triple the Charging Stations... not even close.

A charging point every 5 meters?

If i'm missing a point somwere please enlighten me.

What do Environmental Groups say about these cars?

I just dont see many people owning these fully electrical cars any soon.

[ACE]

First of all there are means and ways whereby cars do self generate electricity. I won't go into the specifics but to give you one example the Prius is self charging. It uses battrey power under 40 mph and once you go over that speed the combustion engine kicks in. Once the engine kicks in the batteries are recharged!!

Also they were experimenting with a totally battrey powered car who's wheels where actually small generators so while the car was moving it was recharching the battery which means that it would not need an external source.

Also one small point which you missed is that mass production of anything is by rule of thumb cheaper and more efficient. It is true that if you charge your car at home you are still using electricity and still polluting but the fraction is something like 1/10 of that of an internal combustion engine. In other words if we had to look at simple cost, where a litre of petrol is €1 it would cost approx 11c to get enough electricity to do the same milage. same thing with the pollution apparently.

By the way I am no advocate for the electric car. I think that I would still want to hear the I/C engine's revving!!

[RedMazda121]

I don't know much about these cars but others tell me that even cars that regenerate their power, are not yet fully regenerative. I stand to be corrected. I based my whole argument on this fact.

and I still think that if one of every 2 drivers had to own one battery car any time soon, even if its just needs an extra fraction of the original energy needed, our Power station is just not up to such an addition. We are already running the limits.

[ACE]

I don't know much about these cars but others tell me that even cars that regenerate their power, are not yet fully regenerative. I stand to be corrected. I based my whole argument on this fact.

and I still think that if one of every 2 drivers had to own one battery car any time soon, even if its just needs an extra fraction of the original energy needed, our Power station is just not up to such an addition. We are already running the limits.

As I told you - I agree with you.

I just thought I'd bring some balance in favour of electric cars to the thread that's all. I am just playing the devil's advocate.

[Balinju]

Electric cars don't work, full stop. The prius is one perfect example. An electric car which does 45mpg. WTF?? buy a polo diesel which can do 70mpg!! And the prius, to charge the battery, it is still using a i/c engine, which makes the car awefully heavy!

[ACE]

Imma if you look at the Tesla .... it is a totally different story.

[Balinju]

Imma if you look at the Tesla .... it is a totally different story.

The tesla is even more rubbish. It does not auto regenerate so you drive it for 1 day and put it on charge for a week

[Balinju]

Battery powered cars are not the future. The future is some kind of different fuel, like hydrogen. However the i/c engine will be replaced completely because hydrogen powered cars generate electricity and then power your wheels, it does not work like a petrol/diesel engine. So yes, the car will die as we know it...