Lamil

New charts made up. Dang.

35mpg car vs volt

25mpg car vs volt

15mpg car vs volt
WOW. I didn't realize just how bad those numbers were >< You can easily sub in and out numbers to fit your car with these charts.

Hope this helps.

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Cleverascouldbe

dunno why someone would buy 1 tbh, lets consider it:

The advantages:
You dont kill the planet in the next 15 million years
you dont cause our kids to never seen a polar bear in its natural habitat
You save on fuel which is rising alot.
You don't fund George Bush with fuel taxes.

Disadvantages:
Initial outlay = EEEEK
It is going to require more maintenence/servicing
your stuck with it for 8 years because who would want a 2nd hand one?

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Daedalus

Upside to electric car: you don't use gas.

Downside: You probably use electricity that was created in a coal power plant.

And Lamil, assuming that someone is already getting 35 mpg, I somehow doubt that they'd be the sort of person who'd want to switch over to pure electric. I figure that the average American gets probably closer to 20-25. Sadly, my shitty truck gets around 15 .

Otherwise, that does seem to be about right. Alternative technology is still expensive, which is why it isn't so prevalent.

Gori

Pickens Plan! We need CNG vehicles. Then they need to start figuring out a way to "mine" all that gas hydrate off the Carolinas.

Lamil

/bump for finished edit with charts

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Luceus

That is a key point many will miss. Based on the charts, it's unlikely going to save money vs a $15k car, and because of how our power is generated, it's unlikely to do much for the environment either.

Now for those few houses with solar power, it'll be a nice boost for the environment. About as nice as filling the ocean one bucket of water at a time.

But to be fair, it is definitely nice to see people trying to think outside the box from traditional gas guzzling cars. It's definitely a good start, but far from the answer.

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Ocabs
Travian - servers 3 & 4
Pretty fun browser game, look me up!

Lamil

Offer one that costs 20k instead of 40, so the price difference is only like 5k.. and then someone with a 20-25mpg car would pay that difference off on average of 2-3 years. Then they start saving 2k a year and it becomes worth it.

But until that 20k difference is brought down, not even close to being worth it.

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kaif

Really?

Electric cars have less working parts to break so less maintenanceMy 2005 Prius I could sell for only a few thousand less then I paid for it.

Need me to de-bunk any more myths for ya?

There are also quite a few other manufactures out there with sub $15k PHEV (pure hybrid electric vehicles) in testing and on the horizon for 2010-2011.

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Widem

It's actually worse than the caculations elude to.

$20,000 over the course of 9 years at a 5% return which is very very conservative is $31,026.56.

You would literally never be able to make a return on your investment with current gas prices b/c the extra cash you put out would grow faster in interest than the cost of gas you are paying. And also with compounding the longer it takes for this chart for you to say it gets a return on investment the more money you lose.

Very very poor investment.

Lamil

Thanks for mentioning that, I was wayyyy too lazy to go into that lol

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