Saturday, July 8, 2006

Intelligent Power

This cute little car is powered by its own solar energy panel. It's a clever and welcome change from the Earth shattering monsters that seem to have colonized this country.
FYI Who killed the electric car? is currently playing in L.A.
[edit: "Electric car returns" by Blogging L.A. 10/12]
photos LA Frog & Google Images

7 comments:

Some Schmuck said...

If the electric car is dead, where did this on come from?

LA Frog said...

Good point John. Maybe this little red number is a survivalist ;) [it belongs to the Patricia Faure Gallery @ the Bergamot Station in Santa Monica]

There are still some EV's on the road but in intimate numbers [the City of Santa Monica has a fleet from Toyota]. The concept was killed as a major breakthrough by the likes of GM and Big Oil.

LA Frog said...

For the drivers:
$250-$450/month on lease equivalent, with "gas cost equivalent" of 60 cents/gallon and no combustion engine maintenance/repairs...

For the car companies [as I wrote on www.advicegoddess.com]:
Looking at it from a quarterly result viewpoint, promoting the electric car was corporate suicide. But not promoting alternatives to gas power means ultimate death for the car/oil companies when the unavoidable shortage of oil creeps in.
The dynosaur syndrome.

LA Frog said...

As the article you linked to explains:
"It's the battery, stupid" because car companies made sure that (1) they didn't use the best batteries available and (2) those well-performing would not been used/avialable [they actually bought *the* best company creating/developing them, to "control the process."]

And yet, the then 60-mile range satisfied the daily mileage of a vast majority of drivers. It's true that the electric car is not for eveyone. Some people need big, powerful cars for their specific personal/professional needs. But the vast majority don't, and the EV's performance is good enough for them. The market is there, both in terms of pricing and performance.

We have to remember that the car companies were forced into making EVs by [California] regulators, and they hated it. So while complying, they made sure to sabotage them. As a former investment banker, I understand their rationale -- it simply didn't fit with their quarterly timeline. As a business strategist, I think they made a business mistake. They'll have to reengineer themselves at some point [the cost/shortage of gas will make sure of that]. Plenty of other industries have had to go through the same, painful process -- or die.

LA Frog said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
LA Frog said...

LAWeekly on "Who's resurrecting the electric car?":
http://tinyurl.com/pry3y
[July 12, 2006]

LA Frog said...

Tesla Roadster unveiling in Santa Monica:
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/20/tesla-roadster-unveiling-in-santa-monica/
[thanks Dano for the tip1]