Viable Electric Car To Hit Europe

[rvalkass 5]

A Norwegian company called Think has announced their electric car, the City, will hit Europe at the beginning of next year, and should reach the US in selected cities by 2009. The City also avoids many of the pitfalls of previous electric cars - poor range and a low top speed. The City is currently limited to 62mph, has lightning-quick acceleration and has a range of 112 miles on a single charge.

 

The one problem is the price - ?16,600 (US$34,000). This far exceeds the cost of many similarly sized 'traditional' cars, and it doesn't necessarily have the same features and extras. However, Think have a new approach to overcoming this. The batteries, the most expensive part of the car, could be leased to the drivers at a cost of ?50 to ?100 ($100 to $200) per month. This would allow batteries to be replaced for drivers when they start to wear out, and extras such as insurance and wireless Internet access could be included to sweeten the deal. The cost of the car would fall dramatically to around ?8,000 ($16,000).

 

Full story at CNN.

 

Its good to see electric cars getting faster and a better range, but it still doesn't really compare to a petrol or diesel powered car that can easily do 400 or 500 miles on one tank of fuel. Charging the car could also be a problem. Here in the UK we don't exactly get enough sunlight to charge a car, which would mean they would have to be plugged into the mains to charge, and this would immediately cancel out the green credentials of the car.

 

Also, electric cars have not yet been made as family-sized models, seating 5 people, or as an MPV seating 7. These would certainly need to be created before a nation-wide program creating an electric infrastructure was rolled out, as otherwise many families would have no way of getting around. Also, electric vans would certainly save a large amount of fossil fuels being used.

[Plenoptic 0]

This sounds sort of interesting. As everything does, these cars will go down in price the longer they are for sale. This goes for anything because of competition and the advancing in technology which lowers cost. So the price will eventually come down and it'll probably come even more efficient. If I were to purchase one of these I would wait a few years because in the first few years is when the most problems occur as well. The cost of the car also balances out though with the money you save on gasoline that you don't have to purchase. Even if you break even, you'll still be lessening the amount of green house gases going out into the atmosphere.

[TikiPrincess 0]

Hopefully it doesn't go the way of the EV1. My friend used to work for the California Air Resources Board, the "clean air agency" established to fix our smog problem. They used to have a whole fleet of electronic vehicles. The government even implemented EV charging stations in public lots all over the major metropolitan areas. The Honda EV Plus was a great little compact SUV with remote climate control. It was roomy and comfortable. But then the car manufacturer's and oil companies got together and decided that they would lose too much money if the electronic vehicles ever gained popularity.

 

If you want to see more about the death of the EVs in the US, go to Who Killed the Electric Car. Or you can rent the documentary by the same name. Kinda sad really...

[Lyon2 0]

Those are great news, at least for me, because i am a big no polution adept and fighter too.I really do not apreciate the price of the electric car, notheless, it is an improvement if governments are allowing/investing on the spread of those types of cars on the society, on the streets which are noe too much poluted by the cars we have used until now, and that we are still using in fact.I do not know, but the price of this car is going to make things even more harder in order for us to evolute to the next step, which is the step of that we have to take responsability for our own actions, responsability to take the action to make as less polution as possible as well as recycle everything we can because my friends, there will be a time, in the future, that we will need to do it even if we do not want!

[jespert 0]

Here in the UK we don't exactly get enough sunlight to charge a car, which would mean they would have to be plugged into the mains to charge, and this would immediately cancel out the green credentials of the car.
Also, electric cars have not yet been made as family-sized models, seating 5 people, or as an MPV seating 7. These would certainly need to be created before a nation-wide program creating an electric infrastructure was rolled out, as otherwise many families would have no way of getting around. Also, electric vans would certainly save a large amount of fossil fuels being used.

The internal combustion engine in the greenest car pollutes far greater than the least green power-plant that supplies your mains power.

As for needing family-sized models or and electric infrastructure, I say don't wait for the government or large corporations to build them. There are electric conversion kits available that can be used to convert whatever size vehicle you want to an electric vehicle. Here is a link with some electric conversion information on it or just Google "electric car conversion".

[iGuest 3]

It's taking way too long for afordable EVs to arrive from well-known manufactutes. The major automakers always seem to be promising that the cars are coming out in "20XX" (where XX = one or two years ahead of the current date, and ratcheting it up all the time). A lot of people are opting to try their own electric car conversion but there are many issues that people run into while attempting it. Hopefully the reports of Nissan's EV coming out in 2010/11 are really true this time.

-reply by Clearlight

[*TBC*Killer 0]

Yea its good news to have that kind of cars we need them ... well it can make some polution yes the electricity costs polution but i think less then the petrol and there are clean ways to make energy and whats the clean way to make fuel ?? mmm i dont know xDBut yes its taking to long to came to Europe but well lets wait The car will come i hope:(

Edited June 23, 2009 by *TBC*Killer (see edit history)

[sheepdog 10]

Well, a car that gets 112 mile to a charge might be ok for some people, but we live in the boondocks, and the closest major city is 50 miles away, so it sure wouldn't do us any good. And I have to wonder just how well an electric car would do if we put 1/2 a ton of dog food in the back of it? Is switching to electric really all that much of an improvement over gasoline/diesel powered engines? Someone mentioned the internal combustion engine in the greenest car pollutes far greater than the least green power-plant, and while that may be true to some extent, what about the increasing need for electricity should the electric car gain in popularity? Will this not add to the increased demand for electric, hence the great possibility of the use of neclear power plants? While these may be none poluting in comparison to coal fired plants, the posibilities of disaster remains, and a neclear melt down would render the real estate around the plant for hundreds of miles totally unusable for the next 500 years or so. Now if we could get this extra electricity from wind or solar power, I might be a little more excited about electric cars.

[Atomic0 0]

The real problems with purchasing, running and maintaining an electric car at the end of the day is the cost, level of convenience and whether it really is worth it.First, the electric car, though not a luxury car, is still very expensive when compared with the average family car, because of the costs of researching a new technology and production has not reached a stage of optimum cost efficiency.Secondly, it is in some ways incovenient to have to charge up the batteries of the electric, especially since charging a flat battery to full charge will take a lot more time than the time required to fill up a petrol tank in a conventional vehicle. Considering that people lead very busy lives and need their cars to a travel around throughout the day, having to maintain the electric car with enough power to run through the day would be an unnecessary inconvenience to drivers.Finally, is the electric car really worth it? Electric cars were originally hyped to be more 'environmentally friendly' than a petrol car, supposedly reducing the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the electricity used to power these cars needs to generated somewhere. Electricity is currently produced by environmentally polluting power stations, with solar energy generation making up only a small percentage of power generation. Instead of supposedly reducing greenhouse gas emission, we are just polluting the atmosphere in a different way when using an electric car.

[s243a 0]

Finally, is the electric car really worth it? Electric cars were originally hyped to be more 'environmentally friendly' than a petrol car, supposedly reducing the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the electricity used to power these cars needs to generated somewhere. Electricity is currently produced by environmentally polluting power stations, with solar energy generation making up only a small percentage of power generation. Instead of supposedly reducing greenhouse gas emission, we are just polluting the atmosphere in a different way when using an electric car.

Speaking of pollution, don't forget, the disposal of the batteries, and the pollution generated in the production of the vehicles. Everything has a price.