Comments on: Ex-oil insider touts electric car http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/04/02/1735/ Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:58:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Stan Wellaway http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/04/02/1735/#comment-258838 Stan Wellaway Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:07:55 +0000 http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/04/02/1735/#comment-258838 <p>Getting back to the transport issue - I do see the all-electric vehicle as the most immediately available option in the many areas where its current limitations (on range and charging time) pose no problem.</p> <p>In the commercial vehicles field, adoption of EVs is proceeding apace. For depot-based delivery fleets (of which there are tens of thousands) the stop-start nature of the task, and the relatively short route circuits, is ideally suitable for EVs. Two UK makers of EVs - Smith EV http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com and Modec - http://www.modec.co.uk - already have several hundred all-electric trucks and vans - from 3.5tons to 12tons in service with supermarkets and parcel delivery companies. Smith EV (part of the stockmarket listed Tanfield Group) are building additional new factories in the USA and UK while ramping up production to 10,000 vehicles a year by 2010. Last month they started their first US-based production line at Fresno, California, where they expect roll out 1000 twelve-ton trucks this year.</p> <p>On the car front, the UK and Europe will see a choice of highway capable electric cars earlier than the US.</p> Getting back to the transport issue - I do see the all-electric vehicle as the most immediately available option in the many areas where its current limitations (on range and charging time) pose no problem.

In the commercial vehicles field, adoption of EVs is proceeding apace. For depot-based delivery fleets (of which there are tens of thousands) the stop-start nature of the task, and the relatively short route circuits, is ideally suitable for EVs. Two UK makers of EVs - Smith EV http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com and Modec - http://www.modec.co.uk - already have several hundred all-electric trucks and vans - from 3.5tons to 12tons in service with supermarkets and parcel delivery companies. Smith EV (part of the stockmarket listed Tanfield Group) are building additional new factories in the USA and UK while ramping up production to 10,000 vehicles a year by 2010. Last month they started their first US-based production line at Fresno, California, where they expect roll out 1000 twelve-ton trucks this year.

On the car front, the UK and Europe will see a choice of highway capable electric cars earlier than the US.

]]> By: thomas C Gray http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/04/02/1735/#comment-258643 thomas C Gray Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:48:04 +0000 http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/04/02/1735/#comment-258643 <p>Electric propulsion as a solution to carbon levels makes not a lot of sense - there are far easier and cheaper ways to reduce large amounts of carbon. Unfortunately, those environmentalists years ago poisoned the public's mind about nuclear pwoer, and have been responsible for the carbon mess we are in today. Now for five years they have been browbeating ignorant pols and the public into throwing money down the drain on deadend primitive technologies like wind power and photovotaic, although neither can produce power when it's needed (meaning their actual costs are doubled - for each windmill, you need a controllable power generator for peak demand periods). Denmark can't even use half of its wind power, and must sell what it can't use to neighbors - at big losses - and then buy back power from them when Denmark needs it the next day. So now, after five years of frantic building of windmills and solar roofs, the two cannot account for ANY peak demand supply, and a mere 1% otherwise, during times when it's not really needed.</p> Electric propulsion as a solution to carbon levels makes not a lot of sense - there are far easier and
cheaper ways to reduce large amounts of carbon. Unfortunately, those environmentalists years ago poisoned the public’s mind about nuclear pwoer, and have been responsible for the carbon mess we are in today. Now for five years they have been browbeating ignorant pols and the public into throwing money down the drain on deadend primitive technologies like wind power and photovotaic, although neither can produce power when it’s needed (meaning their actual costs are doubled - for each windmill, you need a controllable power generator for peak demand periods). Denmark can’t even use half of its wind power, and must sell what it
can’t use to neighbors - at big losses - and then buy back power from them when Denmark needs it the next day. So now, after five years of frantic building of windmills and solar roofs, the two cannot account for ANY peak demand supply, and a mere 1% otherwise, during times when it’s not really needed.

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