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Green Cars?


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Ridiculous idea.... bring back the good old V6 and V8 cars and maybe even th return of the fabulous V12 5.3 litre Jaguar engine which used to power the E-Types... getting fed up with these wishy washy 1 litre Nissan Micra lawnmowers that always hog the middle lane of motorways and are apparently incapable of reaching sp[eeds above 40mph :D

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He's not the only one. :wink::)

 

Not sure about the V12s Baz, the fuel injection could be a bit unreliable in early models. For a short time in 1994 I used a 6 litre V12 XJS...thankfully I didn't have to pay for the petrol, but it was a very nice car.

 

Not talking about fuel injection systems Paul, we are talking about carbs!! nothing like tuning a few webers with a few rags stuffed down the ports!

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Just saw the new Renault ad, for it's new range of electric cars. Seems to be claiming that they don't cause pollution - but instead of fumes coming out of an exhaust, don't the fumes come out a chimney at the power station instead? :?
So why not just throw your rubbish on the street? It's only transferring the problem to the landfill to put it in the bin.

 

Also what you are saying is only partly true. Even with present energy mix, going to electric cuts the pollution in half according to even the most conservative of analyses. Okay, that's no better than LPG, but the advantage is that it is flexible, represents diversification, and will improve.

 

Lovely advert. It's about time the car companies started marketing EVs seriously before making claims that there's no market for them. Their ZOE quite appeals to me. Looks a lot like GM's old EV1. They claim they will be affordable. I wonder what they mean by that.

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Mercedes do an S400 Hybrid which is a 3.5 litre 300BHP V6 with an electric motor on board too. It even takes the heat generated from the brakes and turns it back into energy to recharge the on board Lithium ION batteries!! At 36mpg and emissions down to less than 190 g/km CO2 and with a top speed of 155 mph, that's a proper electric car!!

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I think I?ve said this before but the manufactures might do a bit better if they made the green cars look normal instead of a bit goofy looking. I?m all in favour of greener cleaner cars but some of their offerings to date have been truly bizarre.

 

Bill :)

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Think my point is Shelley, that the imperitive is to reduce energy demand overall, as it's sustainability is becoming more problematic. Using your analogy, whether the rubbish is thrown on the street or on the tip; the amount of rubbish is increasing beyond sustainable levels, and the only solution ultimately is waste reduction. :?

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I?ve just been doing a bit of reading up on an electric car called the Tesla that?s manufactured in the States and based largely on the Lotus Elise.

 

In comparative testing, the Lotus took ?40 to fill and did about 300 miles, the Tesla did much the same for ?3.50 worth of electricity and beat the pants off the Lotus at the same time. 8)

 

But before anyone gets too excited, the price was the best part of ?100K so according to my sums, you?d need drive over half a million miles just to make up the difference in the costs between the Tesla and Elise. :shock:

 

Bill :)

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Think my point is Shelley, that the imperitive is to reduce energy demand overall, as it's sustainability is becoming more problematic. Using your analogy, whether the rubbish is thrown on the street or on the tip; the amount of rubbish is increasing beyond sustainable levels, and the only solution ultimately is waste reduction. :?
You are definitely right about that and what you are saying is important. The analogy is a good one in that way too.

 

I just get tired of the there's no difference lines, which get us nowhere. Moving the problem to the power plant is an important first step. It cleans up our living area in the same way that putting rubbish in the bin does. It gives some chance for reducing car use, because more people would walk or cycle if they didn't have to breath exhaust while doing so. Plus there is economy of scale at a power plant. Can you imagine putting the kind of scrubbers they have a Fiddlers Ferry on a car?

 

You are very right, but at the same time it is very important to not sacrifice the good in search of the perfect. (one of my favourite Obama quotes) Having campaigned for Democratic Party in the states for a number of years I know all too much about the there's no difference lines. For example, there was a difference between Gore and Bush, still is, and if there hadn't been so many people saying there was no difference (perhaps a hundred or so in Florida) the invasion of Iraq might have not happened. Naysayers may give themselves a great sense of superiority, but they are the enemies of the progress they pretend to support. We never learn. The same thing is going on this country right now, and it's a good thing only if you support the Tories.

 

About EVs looking goofy, the main reason for this is the need to start at the low end, because people will be hesitant about investing a lot of money in new technology figuring something better will be out next year. But when I actually looked carefully at Renault's site, only one of the cars looked goofy to me, the low end neighbourhood vehicle one. The largest one looked like a pretty normal car and the compact Zoe practically looks like a sports car.

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