I’m going to kill two birds with one stone in this post. I started out researching electric cars and quickly discovered one of the best sources of information on them is Wikipedia. Since this came just after seeing a major attack on Wikipedia the contrast of the two stories is too hard to ignore. If you have time, look at this video “The Truth According to Wikipedia.”
These people think Wikipedia is evil but my experience is just the opposite, I think Wikipedia is very positive and creative, and represents a new paradigm in thinking and transmitting knowledge. I wanted to find out about electric cars and Wikipedia provided a very comprehensive survey of what’s going on with that technology, and had links to more information and related articles. I jumped over to the Encyclopedia Britannica and found zip – well that’s due to the fact that it’s a sales site and doesn’t offer a way research electric cars without paying. I bought the deluxe DVD of the EB over a year ago and it included one year’s access to the online version of EB.
For awhile whenever I looked up something I’d check EB first and then Wikipedia and in all cases I preferred the information I got from Wikipedia, so I stopped using EB. I could check my DVD copy of EB for what it says about electric cars, but I didn’t reinstall it on my new machine and I don’t feel like hunting down the DVD right now. And it will be out of date. In other words, if Andrew Keen and company want an authoritative encyclopedia to compete with Wikipedia it needs to be on the web and free. I can understand EB wanting to make money but can’t it make money like all the other commercial Internet sites through advertising?
Even if you aren’t interested in electric cars, look at the Wikipedia entry for electric car and plug-in hybrid. I found the stub for electric cars at EB and it promises 227 words if you buy the online subscription. Wikipedia is offering thousands of words of info for free. Sure there’s a chance that some of Wikipedia’s facts might be wrong, but I think the group effort looks extremely good. I learned all I needed and wanted to know and more.
The major criticism for Wikipedia is it’s written by amateurs – but the results look very professional to me. I was quickly able to learn about the different types of electric cars, their histories, and the planned models on the drawing boards. For the plug-in hybrid, the technology I’m most interested in, Wikipedia gives continuously updated listing of press reports. Other than finding insider blogs from fanatics about electric cars, I can’t imagine needing more information than what Wikipedia is presenting.
I learned quickly from Wikipedia what kind of electric cars are for sale. The ones I can afford, I don’t want, and the ones I want, I can’t afford or they aren’t in production yet. I also learned that certain types of electric cars have restrictions to driving on roads with 35mph or less speed limits, which is another reason why I don’t want the affordable electric cars. The information was so good at Wikipedia that I don’t even feel the need to search further. Wikipedia is even supplanting the Internet.
My conclusion is I need to wait for the automobile industry to come up with a good solution. Not only that, it looks like it will be a long time before Detroit or Japan offers a $20-25k plug-in hybrid that will be practical for the average driver. It appears for the next few years the best electric cars will compete in price with the more expensive models of Mercedes.
This brings me to the second bird I wanted to kill with this stone. If global warming is the crisis that scientists are saying it is, why hasn’t our government and others around the world jumped in a created a crash program to manufacture low cost plug-in hybrid electric cars? If what scientists are saying about global warming is true it’s far more terrifying than anything Osama bin Laden plans to do, or more threatening than Iraq five years ago. Why is Muslim terrorists more scary than a threat that promises to grind civilization down world-wide?
Politicians who avoid the issue of global warming do so because they fear fighting it will hurt the economy. I would think one major solution to keep the economy stable and fight global warming at the same time would be the development of an ecological car. Plug-in hybrids appears to be the next intermediate solution – they still use gas, but much less, so they will work with the existing infrastructure of gasoline supplied energy stations. Plug-in hybrids will also benefit from people who install solar energy panels on their houses. If you create a Marshal Plan like effort to promote both technologies we could lower our oil consumption and lower our use of coal in electrical production and thus find two major ways to lower our carbon footprint.
I think our leaders are still in the authoritative mindset of people who are attacking Wikipedia, but the world’s population acts more like the human dynamics that create Wikipedia. Car makers still want to sell expensive Encyclopedia Britannica editions. What we need are leaders who can promote solutions to global warming in the same way Wikipedia succeeds.
Jim
Auxiliary Memory 
Two quick replies on the run…
1. Wikipedia is an incredible source of information with such an unbiased knowledge base, makes it always a good starting point for research. Yet one must carefully validate its material before using… as with all research though.
2. The problem with electric vehicles at the moment is sustained power, and trading air pollution for ground contamination with depleted batteries that should have been re-manufactured. We are a throw away society.
There is much research in producing better hydrogen fuel cells in progress. Both the University of Wisconsin and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have made some great strides in this area.
Here is a recent article from UWM.
New Nanoparticle Catalyst Brings Fuel-Cell Cars Closer To Showroom
http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/unv_tech/p336_29.html
Take care
Heidi-Ann~
I figure electric vehicles, particularly plug-in hybrids will be an immediate solution before other long term solutions come about. They are just the first step in a long road we must hike to get to the promised land. Hydrogen power and fuel cell cars will take decades to roll out because they will require a whole new support infrastructure.
If you are buying a car today the best you can do is probably a hybrid, but they are expensive, so for the common folk, a low cost high mileage vehicle is the best solution. However, even then it might be worth while to wait two-three years if possible.
Within three years car makers should be selling something that’s a major leap forward over what you can get today. A hybrid that’s evolved into a plug-in hybrid might be the design.
For electric cars to be really eco-friendly they need to be paired with eco-friendly power sources. One good way to do that is to put your house on the grid with solar energy collectors and sell energy during the day and charge the car at night from the grid. This isn’t a perfect solution because of various other factors, especially the nasty qualities of batteries.
My current vehicle gets 15-20 mpg, so if my next vehicle gets 30-40 then I’ve cut my carbon use in half – if you don’t consider the carbon cost of creating a whole new vehicle, which is a big issue. That’s why I’m thinking I need to wait and see if I can get a plug-in hybrid in 3 years that will get 60-80 mpg or better.
If fuel cell cars can be ready as soon or relatively soon, then it would be worth waiting for them, but will that be the case?
My goal a year ago was to reduce my carbon footprint by 50 percent in 5 years. Eventually, we need to be using 80-90 percent less than what we were using in the 1990s. That’s going to be hard but doable, but it might take 10 years.
Jim
Thanks for the great article and the link to my site.
I wanted to respond to Heidi-Ann: modern electric cars are designed with batteries that are intended to last the lifetime of the car. No throw-away is involved.
There are major environmental benefits to a switch from gas-powered to electric cars, even ignoring the fact that solar and wind power can be used to power the cars (as is being done by the entire country of Holland, in the case of wind power). The efficiency of power plant + electric car is considerably higher than that of gas-powered cars, from what I seen published. I’ll dig up the references and post them later (they are found in many places, including articles and comments by Sam Carana at Gather.com: http://www.gather.com/viewArticles.jsp?memberId=217467&nav=Namespace).
Add solar and wind power to the equation, with appropriate tax rebates as befits something of importance to national security, and electric cars can be extremely clean. They are definitely far preferable to our current liquid fuel system.
Best wishes, Jim greenchemistry.wordpress.com
Thanks James, let me add some lines here.
Electric cars have many advantages. They are more efficient, due to regenerative braking. They are also lighter, as they need less parts than gasoline cars; with economies of scale, that should make electric cars cheaper to buy, to drive and to maintain. Electric cars are also cleaner than gasoline cars, even if the power came from coal-fired power plants.
The main obstacle is the vested interests and their influence on politicians. To achieve the rapid shift we need, feebates are most effective, e.g. (1) fees on gasoline cars that fund rebates on local purchases of and conversions to electric cars, and (2) fees on fossil fuel that fund rebates on facilities that produce clean and safe electricity, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
For more details, see my articles at:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticles.jsp?memberId=217467
Cheers!
Sam Carana
Unfortunately Sam, the auto industry isn’t selling any of these cars yet. Yes, electric cars should be cheaper, but the Tesla and Volt don’t seem to reflect those cost savings. Sure there are some electric cars for sale right now that are low cost, but they aren’t highway ready.
I don’t know if we need rebates – if the big car makers sold plug-in hybrids for the same price as a Camry or Accord they’d be flying off the lots – at least while gas prices are this high. And as long as gas prices climb I think the public and even the politicians will want cars that are more efficient. I bet truckers had rigs with electric motors combined with diesel generators right now.
It’s a shame as a society that we’re so stupid and didn’t learn from the first oil crisis. We could have switched to better technology back then. Let’s hope this second wake-up call will get us off our asses and into better cars.
Your site looks right up my alley!
James, you are right that plug-in hybrids and electric cars are only available (in the US) from boutique manufacturers, at $40,000 and up. However, that will change soon. For example, see the article about inexpensive electric cars coming to the US in 2009:
http://greenchemistry.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/affordable-electric-cars-coming-to-us-in-2009/
Also, Camry plug-in hybrids are on the way.
A great source of information is:
http://www.hybridjungle.net/ devoted to hybrid vehicles of all types (plug-in, diesel, diesel plug-in, trucks, etc.)
James:
The electric car scene is heating up, as is the approach of high mpg vehicles of various types to the US. There are articles about the most fuel-efficient cars in the US (Toyota), Toyota’s plug-in hybrid, Honda’s new plug-in hybrid electric car, VW’s diesel plug-in hybrid concept car, and VW’s 60 mpg turbo-diesel, legal in all 50 states, all found at my blog, http://greenchemistry.wordpress.com/
Best wishes, Jim
Hydrogens here already. It was here before the internal combustion engine. As a matter of fact, the very first internal combustion engine ran entirely on hydrogen produced from water. Some rich guy wanted to sell oil, so here we are, go figure?