Who Killed the Electric Car trailer
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When Fortune 500 companies have called for national action, and new scientific evidence of global warming's toll is presented everyday, the need for a national cap on global warming pollution has never been stronger.

In the United States cars and trucks emit 333 million tons of carbon dioxide each year - more than a fifth of our nation's global warming pollution. Yet, average fuel efficiency hasn't improved in more than 10 years.

Car companies need to do more.

Tell automobile makers to support efforts to cut America's global warming pollution by improving efficiency and supporting a mandatory, economy-wide, national cap on global warming pollution.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takea...ltl=1176623771

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"Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money." ~ Chief Seattle, 1854

I tell you, I.C;what I would like to see is legislation passed that will require all automobiles sold after say,2010, to be hybrid. That alone will reduce the global warming effect by a substantial percentage and reduce air pollution a nice amount also.
Next, I would love to see the U.S. government offer a bounty(for lack of a better word)for development of an electric car with a range of 320 to 400 miles on a single charge of the battery. I envision the establishment of BATEX ( for battery exchange) stations; where for a $15.00 charge, you would be able to drop off your battery in exchange for a new fully charged one. Just think, no more $50.00 fillups! No more having to work a second job just to pay for gasoline! Politically; no more having to treat with countries with adverse views on government than our own simply because they possess the 'black gold'
The "bounty" I speak of should be substantial; as it will spur on and challenge the best minds in the world to now put their brainpower to good instead of bad. Humanity can once again be within our reach, people. Let me know what you think !

Interesting idea.
Hmm... how are we charging the batteries? Maybe people on exercise bikes???

We have electric cars now, Chris- they only have a range of about 150 miles on a charge. Unfortunately, we use our cars for much more travel to make this practical as is. We have conformal fuel cells that are the power source for Air Force fighters that allows them to cross the Atlantic Ocean on one hop. As far as how they would charge the batteries for a new, expanded range electric car: electricity should be able to handle that. But, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Yes, I know there are electric cars now. And no, we're not getting ahead of ourselves. You are proposing electric cars. Electricity for the batteries would be produced from what fuel source? This is what I was wondering. Sorry I was not explicit enough.

Thats a great idea! As for charging them, each station could be decked out with solar panels, wind, and(according to location) even water turbines, with a 110 charger for backup. A large bank of batteries charging on such a system could handle charging other batteries of a smaller capacity. It would take some peaking and tweaking but we do have the technology to build these systems right now.

Do solar panels work on cloudy days? We seem to have alot of them where I live.

Very poorly actually. A system like I was talking about should handle those days though. It comes down to battery capacity. If you have a large enough bank of batteries to charge from, it should easily recover alot of the power lost, on its own(thru each batteries' own chemical reaction). Of course if you went without sun or wind for a few days you would have to charge the bank with another source. In which case, a diesel generator, converted to burn say, hemp, soy or corn oil, would be a enviromentally friendly alternative. You'd have to do the math and figure the capacity, the daily output, the input from your various sources, the amperage, how many batteries of a useable voltage you would need and the bank's recovery abilities. It could be made to work with a little adjusting.

I had a little experience with solar panels and a small wind generator on a deepsea commercial fishing boat I worked on. For a small set up like it, 6 volt batteries(Golf cart) work best. They hold a charge about twice as long as deep cycle 12volts. The cool part about them is you can put two 6 volts in series and make twelve volts if you need it. You'll have more than twice the amp hours as a single 12.
You can then hook a bunch of sets of two 6 volts in series up in what is called parallel and double your amp hours with each set of two. For instance, a ten amp drain on two 6s in series will give you 180 amp-hours, two sets of two will give you 360. A single group 27, deep cycle 12 volt gives about 84 amp-hours with the same 10 amp drain.
You can also have the option of charging two 6s with 12 volts or 6 volts (12 volts in series, 6 volts individually).

I would like to eventually set something up for my family's personal use. There are new types of batteries out now that have different properties that are suppose to be even better.

The future of automotive fuels will be an assortment of different alternatives all at once. I feel that we have the technology to completely be free of fossil-fuels, so why make all cars hybrids? I believe the future of cars will comprise of all-electrics, fuel cell (run on water), run on air, ethanol, biodiesel, and/or combinations of those. Why get a gas-electric hybrid when you can get an ethanol-electric hybrid? After all, not only is ethanol cleaner but it's more efficient and more powerful with a higher octane than regular fuel.

So these stations would have to have solar panels, some sort of windmill to capture wind power, and a diesel generator that runs on alternative fuel. And that's just for the electric cars.

Cars that run on other sources of energy would need a dispenser and storage tank for each type of energy.

This refueling station is getting bigger and bigger... or are you thinking of having a different station for each type of alternative fuel?

Another thought: using food sources as fuel sources will make food more expensive. I think we need to use non-food sources as fuel sources. Lawn clippings come to mind, but I think that would take too much energy getting it from yard to "refinery". Anyone else have any other ideas?