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Posted By: sparkyinak NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/20/13 06:37 PM
Corperate greed hard at work...

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Posted By: jdevlin Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/21/13 02:44 PM
Companies should be allowed to sell their product under any model they wish. Notice it is auto dealers association that is backing this bill.
Posted By: NickD Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/21/13 08:53 PM
The same thing has been happening over and over again in the gas vs. (strictly) electric market. It goes way back to GM's own EV1 in the late 90s. GM themselves killed the line after just 3 years, and destroyed unsold cars. No, they weren't a flop... they were a hit and that scared GM.
The oil companies and automakers are all VERY scared of being hurt by electric, and are tightly protected by a very unscrupulous corporate/political "ecosystem".
Posted By: gfretwell Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/21/13 10:12 PM
A former GM CEO explained the end of the EV1 a while ago. They were just concept cars that cost about a quarter of a million each and although most of the owners loved them, they did not have a clue what they cost or what would happen when the batteries needed to be replaced.
GM decided to retire them while they were still on top.
Posted By: HotLine1 Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/22/13 01:36 AM
I personally bought a Civic (gas) over a Prius in '09. The Prius was commanding a 'premium' then during the 'Cash for Clunkers' Gov't program, and I could not get a $$ on the Prius battery.

The Twp I work for has a mini-fleet of Prius (Prii??), all '08s. Mine has 38.5MPG lifetime on the computer, all city driving. My Civic (09) averages 35 MPG for the 98k miles, most are highway.

One Tesla & fast charger was recently installed in a home, the 'S' model, & the guy loves it. There are a few Leafs around also.

I have not done any research on the battery life, or $$$ since I needed a car in '09, and I hope there is some info available now.



John,


I have already inspected for 2 of the electric car chargers in houses. Have you had any come through your town yet?
Posted By: HotLine1 Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/25/13 07:08 PM
Harold:
Beside the one above, we had a few Nissan Leafs in resi.

PSE&G Conf. & Training Ctr has two fast chargers in the lot.

BMW dealer installed two charger locations a few months back.

Fuji Electric is working on a prototype for UL approval, looks like a vending machine.

We also have a operation that is really into battery developement for cars.
My friend is the CO of New Providence and the gas co. came to him, they were going to install a LPG station. The first one to be installed on the east coast, but it never happened. I am not sure why they pulled out. I guess they didn't think that there would be enough customers.
Posted By: mikesh Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/28/13 11:29 PM
I recently challenged an enviromentalist about the Site C dam project proposed for Northern BC.
When did Hydro power get such a bad environmental rap with all these super expensive alternate enrgy project suddenly get so green? My point to her was if we suddenly went from fossil fuels to electric that the provinces electrical grid would immediately be too small to supply the electricity without the dam and probaly a few coal fired and gas fired generators. Her jaw dropped because they just don't thonk about any of it. The move from portable fuels to electricity will remove some carbon but it is naive to think that electric cars are as clean as the greens think. I have not done the math but with all the losses between the generator and the battery both charging and utilizing the power if the conversion actually would have a net reduction in carbon or would the carbon just move to the new generating facilities.
The entire city needs to be rewired too sice besides the heat, lights and plugs the grid must replace millions of kilowatts of power now produced by burning a fuel.
Posted By: gfretwell Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/29/13 12:19 AM
I have always wondered and not seen what the total loss is between generated power and billed power.
Posted By: LarryC Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/30/13 12:16 AM
The numbers I hear being tossed about, state approximately 1/3 of the heat initially created ends up being electricity. In North America that seems about right with respect to commercial nuclear power plants. 300 MWthermal = 100MWelectric.

I "think" the net loss from power plant to consumer runs about 10% but I have nothing to back that claim up.
Posted By: gfretwell Re: NC trying to ban sales of Tesla cars - 05/30/13 12:49 AM
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I "think" the net loss from power plant to consumer runs about 10% but I have nothing to back that claim up.


That is the question I can't really nail down. I see lots of estimates but I have to believe there must be hard numbers out there. The power companies know how much they generate and what gets billed but I suspect they don't what us to know that some companies make more money brokering power than actually selling it or generating it.
When you read articles about how hot big power lines run, it makes it clear a lot of power is simply radiated into space from I2R losses.
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