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Originally Posted by highwayblaze That thing is a joke in comparison to GM's EV1. its so strange, the same company once produced a better Electric Vehicle. Downgrading for progress or what?! weird no? |
The Ev1 was a twin seater power by Lead acid battery pack(and NiMH in later stages) with a range of about 80-100 miles. Most people used it for daily commute and were in love with it until one rude day, GM decided to snatch their comfort. The Volt is a patch by GM after eating all the critcism from the users and green groups.
The Volt, unlike the EV1 can go about 40 miles in a single charge and it has a range extender(an engine petrol/CNG/LPG/Diesel or a fuel-cell stack) that allows it to go much further. Unlike the EV1 the Volt can be used for long drives too. The Volt also supposed to use the mordern and debated Litium-ion(phostphate based) cells, that charge in no time and are much lighter. For a dialy user it can go as good as no fuel usage at all to about 70 MPG(28kmpl).
There are quite some of second hand car maintainers have actually replaced their big engines with Lead acid battery, motor and an small litre sized engines to get 60+MPG figures.
About these things in India, dont have any hope, not atleast till 2020, unless TATA makes one.
Unlike Hybrids, Hydrogen cars are much reachable for us(Hydrogen run ICE(Internal Combustion Engine)), government promises to make available Hydrogen car by 2010(Interpreted in Indian government time as 2015), a group of companies are working on it. Hydrogen will also be introduced into the CNG. The cost of production of hydrogen is still and hanging issue, as of current situation we have many solutions to this issue.
- While the sun shines our government can put to use all the barren land in places like Rajasthan and some smaller places in other states, to produce Hydrogen from water.
- They put to use some very light spirits from the Petroleum extract to produce Hydrogen.
- Hyrdrogen can also be produced at home, by buying a solar/non solar powered small water-to-hydrogen systems. The advantage is this can act as a fuel, to your house inverter and also for car.
The main defect that people never tell about hydrogen cars are that they will not solve our Global warming, it will solve economy/fuel crisis and health hazards. This is because water vapour by itself is a warming component, though it does not seem as big an issue now, it will become an issue when millions of people start using this. But a fuel cell powered car comes as a breather as it is atleast 100-120% more energy efficient(theoratically) than petrol cars and water vapour can be cooled/condensed in the car after this awareness comes to people.