Considering an electric car?

Except no, it isn't, because the only thing rising faster than oil prices is the electricity price.

Not to mention the whole issue of having to recharge all night and being able to drive 1 hour at 50 km/h, while lugging the equivalent of a few tons of laptop batteries around.
 
Why can't local publications at least read the content they re-publish and make sure it's relevant to the local market? It really annoys me me when they just publish an article like this.

The power situation is very different here than in the US (where the article got penned). We have a standard 220V @ 15A / plug supply system, so most of this article is irrelevant in SA.

Secondly, the Leaf and Volt won't come to our shores anytime soon and why show a picture of a Joule without mentioning it?

Shoddy. :mad:
 
<?php?> said:
Can’t believe there is still a misconception that electric vehicles are slow. :wtf:
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Electric vehicles are either slow, or stupidly, outrageously expensive. And the faster ones have even less of a range than the 2 mentioned in the article.
 
TJ99 said:
Electric vehicles are either slow, or stupidly, outrageously expensive. And the faster ones have even less of a range than the 2 mentioned in the article.
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Several myths you believe in.

Electric cars aren't slow OR outrageously expensive anymore. There is no trade-off. Nor they don't lug around "tons" of "equivalent to laptop batteries"

If you believe that then you bought into what the oil-companies propaganda wanted you to believe (or you're head is stuck up your ass which is in 1990 somewhere still). This is 2011. Not 1990. Technology has made this thing you're reading me typing to you possible. Why can't it do the same for the electric car? Mmmm?

Adding onto this poor excuse of an article which is irrelevant to South Africa and to others noting how expensive electricity is: Some cars come with sunroof-solar-panels which helps a lot in recharging your vehicle. Even though we won't see the cars mentioned in South Africa, there's a team IN South Africa that has developed a car (I forget the name) which will be locally produced AFAIK.
 
TJ99 said:
Electric vehicles are either slow, or stupidly, outrageously expensive. And the faster ones have even less of a range than the 2 mentioned in the article.
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This one beats them all http://www.teslamotors.com/ fast, long range, but yes expensive, although with time and production increase, prices generally come down.

Also I don’t think any car manufacturer anytime soon will release an electric car that with equal a petrol/diesel performance/distance as electric cars are far less maintenance.
 
Eksdom said that we are paying less that the rest of the world!

Electricity in the US is "11 cents per kwh"! Roughly translated it is about 75 cents per unit. I am already paying close to R 1 per unit and the next three 25% increases to get us up to world prices are still ahead.

Is the average SA worker earning more than the average US worker or do I miss something?:confused:
 
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AcidRaZor said:
Several myths you believe in.

Electric cars aren't slow OR outrageously expensive anymore. There is no trade-off. Nor they don't lug around "tons" of "equivalent to laptop batteries"

If you believe that then you bought into what the oil-companies propaganda wanted you to believe (or you're head is stuck up your ass which is in 1990 somewhere still). This is 2011. Not 1990. Technology has made this thing you're reading me typing to you possible. Why can't it do the same for the electric car? Mmmm?

Adding onto this poor excuse of an article which is irrelevant to South Africa and to others noting how expensive electricity is: Some cars come with sunroof-solar-panels which helps a lot in recharging your vehicle. Even though we won't see the cars mentioned in South Africa, there's a team IN South Africa that has developed a car (I forget the name) which will be locally produced AFAIK.
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Yeah, myths, myths everywhere!

It must be some global Illuminati/oil company/other bladdy agent conspiracy that wrote the article then, financed by Saudi princes, covered up at Area 51 and masterminded by our new alien overlords.

Two mass-market electric cars, the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf, have different power systems and different charging needs. The Leaf is all electric and can go up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) on a single charge. But it needs more juice than the Volt to refill the batteries. It takes eight hours to recharge a Leaf even with a 240-volt circuit, double that at 120 volts.
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(That's city driving, which uses much less power as it's much slower.)

The Volt can only go about 40 miles (65 kilometers) on battery power, but it has a small gas motor on board that can keep the car going when the battery runs out. With its smaller battery pack, it can be recharged in 10 hours even on 120 volts, five hours or less at 240.
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The Tesla roadster, the best of the lot, uses lithium-ion batteries, the same type as is used in... yup, laptops. Oh yes, they're only half a ton if you want to split hairs.

The South African car you're looking for is the Joule. It has a somewhat better range, but will only go into production in 2014.

Battery powered cars simply aren't advanced enough at present, and when they are, we'll need a proper new electricity source first, not wussy wind or solar energy, but nuclear fission or better yet fusion, since the power demands would be enormous if all the energy the millions of cars in the world used to get from petrol suddenly had to come from electricity.

Until then, have fun stopping for 4-8 hours after every hour (at most) of driving when you leave town. I'll be in my Benz wafting past and laughing at al the smug, informed idiots. Hypothetically of course, since electric cars are illegal on highways in SA anyways.
 
As the proud driver of a Toyota Prius I am excited to see the developments being made in this field. From my own personal experience, driving 850 to 950 Km with 40L of petrol has already saved me a lot of money.

Yes, South Africa is lagging behind when it comes to Plug In vehicles - in some EU Countries they have special parking spots for Plug in vehicles to allow the vehicle to recharge while you do your shopping.

Oil will not last forever, sooner or later an alternative will need to be found. I can just imagine everyone carrying around a small nuclear reactor in their boots - should make car crashes alot more fun :)
 
TwoCents1000 said:
Why can't local publications at least read the content they re-publish and make sure it's relevant to the local market? It really annoys me me when they just publish an article like this.

The power situation is very different here than in the US (where the article got penned). We have a standard 220V @ 15A / plug supply system, so most of this article is irrelevant in SA.

Secondly, the Leaf and Volt won't come to our shores anytime soon and why show a picture of a Joule without mentioning it?

Shoddy. :mad:
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This.

It's not really relevant to us, why publish it? A better option would be to use it as the basis for a more relevant look at the situation in South Africa. Gas (Petrol) prices and electricity prices and the price of installation are bound to be completely different in this country, it makes absolutely no sense repeating them.
 
lexis said:
Electricity in the US is "11 cents per kwh"! Roughly translated it is about 75 cents per unit. I am already paying close to R 1 per unit and the next three 25% increases to get us up to world prices are still ahead.

Is the average SA worker earning more than the average US worker or do I miss something?:confused:
Click to expand...

I also saw this and thought the exact same thing...
 
TwoCents1000 said:
Why can't local publications at least read the content they re-publish and make sure it's relevant to the local market? It really annoys me me when they just publish an article like this.

The power situation is very different here than in the US (where the article got penned). We have a standard 220V @ 15A / plug supply system, so most of this article is irrelevant in SA.
Click to expand...

Agreed, like in mega pumpkins per kilo whatever! We love you copy&paste.
 
zamedic said:
As the proud driver of a Toyota Prius I am excited to see the developments being made in this field. From my own personal experience, driving 850 to 950 Km with 40L of petrol has already saved me a lot of money.

Yes, South Africa is lagging behind when it comes to Plug In vehicles - in some EU Countries they have special parking spots for Plug in vehicles to allow the vehicle to recharge while you do your shopping.

Oil will not last forever, sooner or later an alternative will need to be found. I can just imagine everyone carrying around a small nuclear reactor in their boots - should make car crashes alot more fun :)
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I must admit 25km/l doesn't sound as good as I expected for a Hybrid.
Considering the Daihatsu Move does 23km/l and it's not a hybrid (although much smaller car)
 
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