The info all sounds good and can only be a good thing if it lowers petrol prices but an electric car built by a company who cannot get the electrics right on their petrol/diesel models does sound a bit worrying:lol:
disturbing as it sounds, I'm strangely drawn to the fluence ZE and lets face it anything would be better that a Prius.
The info all sounds good and can only be a good thing if it lowers petrol prices but an electric car built by a company who cannot get the electrics right on their petrol/diesel models does sound a bit worrying:lol:
Sorry I appear to disagree with some of you on here.... I bought a new Clio Diesel a couple of years ago... Fantastic vehicle, did 55+ to the gallon, £35 a year road tax, and at the time suited me perfectly. I had no electrical problems whatsoever, and the only problem I had, a faulty brake adjuster was dealt with straight away.
Compare it to VW Golf GTi's that my firm leased and I know which I would choose for build quality.
We can only speak as we find about cars. The more we want in the form of bells and whistles the more there is to go wrong.
The problem with electric cars is that they are cynically touted as a green alternative. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The manufacture and disposal of batteries produces large scale amounts of heavy metals and toxins. Batteries only have an finite life and will probably need replacing every 3 years, at quite a cost.
The electric cars themselves, at the moment, are stupidly expensive compared to petrol or diesel.
Also the electricity that charges the cars mostly comes from gas or coal fired power stations. All you are doing is moving the CO2, carbon etc etc from your exhaust pipe to the chimney of a power station. At the moment, if everyone switched to electric cars, the national grid would collapse when we plugged them in over night. You would still be charged a fortune for fuel as it is the same people providing the gas for the power stations as provides the petrol, and they would just boost the price up to silly figures. We are currently on a gas ballancing warning, which means we are using gas at an unprecendented level, to plug our cars in would probably cause the gas system to collapse too.
The worst thing is, at the moment it will be congestion charge free etc etc. That will only last until the majority of cars are electric and the government are not filling their pockets with duties on fuel, congestion etc, then they will find ways of taxing your electric car to make up the difference.
Unless you have a wind generator in your back garden, I'm afraid that the green credentials of the electric car are not what they seem.
Fuel cell is an interesting concept though.
Some reading for you. The first one is to do with an electric mini whos rage has dropped to a 55 mile round trip (with a 2 hour plug in midway) due to the cold weather. Quite topical at the moment.
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/12/29/mini-e-range-plummets-as-winter-hits-the-northeast/
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/01/08/study-battery-electric-vehicles-unlikely-to-be-cost-competitive/