Quote Originally Posted by Frank S View Post
An old saying coined mostly by science fiction writers goes like this "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". I find that saying to hold true in every aspect of what we do in our daily lives. Just like over unity, from what we know of physics in our little spectrum of knowledge of the universe you cannot get something from nothing nor can you create more of anything out of less than what is already there.
BEVs are being touted as the end all saving grace of vehicles, but nothing could be further than the truth than the purposeful omission of the cost of energy to produce them, the added strain on natural recourses to produce them.
Hybrids are as has been mentioned probably the better of the 2 worlds. However, from a purely economic means of going to town and back. If for instance you don't need anything more than transportation if you had a duel chargeable Hybrid or even a BEV that you could plug in to recharge the battery when it is parked at your home from solar panels instead of being charged from the grid once the initial cost outlay was covered from miles driven not having to pay the utility company for your electricity you would realize at net savings of cash, Driving the duel chargeable hybrid sensibly you might not even have to run the engine very much at all.
But none of anyof this will do a thing to save the planet as they like to say, unless you maintain and keep the vehicle for its full life cycle. This trading for new every year or even every 5 years will do nothing but continue the cycle of waste.
I bet my 30-year-old diesel pickup that gets around 20 MPG is as green if not greener than most vehicles sold within the past 5 years will ever be if they are not kept on the road for at least 15 years, assuming any of the plastic laden electronically overburdened pieces of junk will last that long
BEV can be what they propose. But I like your caveats. Electricity has to be renewable. And the lifecycle of the car has to be reasonable. The two largest opposing forces are in play here. Big business not wanting to do anything bad for business margins ( almost makes sense ). A consumers habits. Uphill both ways.

I like the idea of a relatively cheap to drive vehicle. I see the quality of the engineering involved. But the battery type has to change. There isn't enough Lithium available right now for demand. Nor is there enough Nickel. Again there are alternatives. But there is 20 years of know how into making Lithium ion cells. And that is the true problem. Any other battery type is just not alive long enough in large production capacities to have the engineering expertise available to make this work. Another Big business versus profits versus commodity availability conundrum. Not saying businesses are not willing to produce at a loss what they see long term as a profitable product. There are many examples of large companies being willing to foot the bill. And that is probably what will have to be done to make these electric cars viable.

From what I have seen for true mileage numbers from hybrids they are kind of a does nothing better but costs a lot more situation. Peoples normal driving habits do not give a person better fuel economy in these hybrid cars. You have to want to chase the efficiency. Some get awesome MPG. But most people I have talked to don't get a whole lot more than I did in my little Toyota pickup or my Little Toyota van.

As for efficiency. I drove Diesel Jetas around for over 15 years. I'd get nearly 50MPG in the city and over 60MPG on the highway. Now you get half of that. I'm not a chemist. But isn't double the mileage mean that you have potentially half of the pollutants?