Who Revived the Electric Car?
February 3rd, 2007 by Eric
General Motors has long been criticized for being slow-footed in creating alternative fuel vehicles, falling well behind Toyota and even Ford in new sales because of it and taking a huge hit in their stock price, from $55/share in January 2004 to $33/share today. Late last year a new documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” dissected the way that GM, the oils companies, consumers, and the federal government helped to derail the EV1 (GMs first electric vehicle).
But there has been progress. Recently, Chevy announced that it has created the Concept Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid car that runs for 40 miles without using a drop of gas. And when it does, the engine is capable of running on E85, a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. This new technology would allow most workers to get to work and back every day without spending a nickel on gas and without putting a single CO2 molecule into the atmosphere. According to autobloggreen.com:
For a customer driving about 40 miles a day or about 15,000 miles a year, compared to a 30 mpg car, the Volt would save about 500 gallons of gasoline per year. If the car is charged every night, the driver should be able to achieve that mileage using virtually no gasoline. That same example would also save 4.4 metric tonnes of CO2 every year from each car. Another example of a driver commuting 60 miles a day would achieve an equivalent mileage of 150 mpg based on the engine running for the last 20 miles in a charge sustaining mode.
So great! That’s it. Nothing left for the consumers to do but wait for it to become available and affordable, right? Well, I suggest that we all fill out this survey to let them know much we want it, and how quickly. They are a Corporation after all, and they’ll do what’s best for the bottom line. So let’s put a little pressure on them. And in the meantime, we can all do a few things to increase our gas mileage. And that’s progress.
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