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Originally Posted by SCOBRAC
Electric cars are nothing new, they've been around since the early 1900's. (Un) Fortunately even GM can't make them work. It was rumored they lost $25-30k on every single EV-1 it built. They didn't even have the confidence to sell the stupid things... Every one was leased and presently none are on the road. We still have electric car charging stations at the city hall in my town that are NEVER used.
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Well.....Yes and No. I have the direct inside track on this; I'm married to one of GM's senior fuel cell research scientist. We had an EV1 for a short time as part of GM's research program. Not all, but some are still on the road today, but only certain GM employees drive them through the program. They get charged by home adapters or at the GM facilities that host the cars. The car was not a complete loss and taught the engineers thing they needed to know as far as the electric motor and power applications were concerned. The major shortcoming was the 100 mile range which was not always 100 miles depending on your driving habits. It was amazingly fast for its short driving time.
I'm holding out for one of the fuel cell powered cars my wife is working on. Hydrogen is the best solution for the future.....although I love dealing in cars that harkened back to a time where dead dinosaurs were king
. Anyway, with fuel cells the range of an average car will be in the 600-700 mile area and it will burn 100% clean. Electric motors driven by the power output of a fuel cell are very torquey. I have been for rides in some of GM's test vehicles and they are very fast. Technically the only thing holding us back is the supply infrastructure for the hydrogen.
By the way, don't anybody think that a fuel cell powered Cobra has not been discussed at my house
. I'm waiting for the day the FC cars hit the dealers and I start the worlds first FC hop-up parts business and have an in house development scientist.
Just my ramblin for the evening.
--Mike / Turn Ten Racing, Inc.
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