Monday 16 May 2011

Electric town cars

I have been banging on about electric cars for yonks and bemoaning the fact I could not buy one here that was in my budget range, ie, zero to not much. The Zenn is priced at about AuD $10,000.

So, here is the ZENN courtesy of Helen Dehner.
They do not mention running costs, but other electric cars cover the equivalent of 250 MPG or 100+K per litre, ie about 10% of the cost or runnng an equivalent gas car.
Apparantly top speed is limited by legislation(40 KPH), not the car's potential and many do get their controllers modified to the higher speeds (60KPH) permitted in some states of the US.
It will go much faster so why are limits set so low? Conspiracy theories would do well here, so constuct your own!

In Oz, with all energy providers paying for home generated power, in some states paying gross feed-in tariffs, running costs are reduced to zero (after establishmet costs, that we are told are recovered in three to five years), one would be crazy not to consider one as the second car!
For the First Car, I am still hanging out for H/fuel cell cars to hit the streets here. They promise highway speeds, more range than a petrol or diesel car, no battery bank and zero emissions.
Of course the zero emnissions part depends on the source of power to run Electroysers used to generate the H! But even if coal fired or nuclear is the source for now, at least we do get cleaner city air.

5 comments:

  1. I won't tell you what I drive
    :-)

    but try hauling around a bunch of kids or stuff in one of those electric cars...
    but I support your right to want one
    :)

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  2. Are you saying you will get a zenn?

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  3. I'm waiting for all the kinks to be worked out-and also for my car (Subaru) to be completely used up before investing in any other vehicle. Fortunately we havd a local bus that will take us places we cannot walk or bike to- so the car doesn't get a whole lot of use unless we take a road trip. My cousin has a prius and the problem with that is the battery issue: it has to be replaced after about 5 years to the tune of $5000 ...youwch.

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  4. No Annell, like kathe, I am squeezing the last out of my 22YO Mitsibishi which goes to the recycler when the registation runs out in June. It runs well, but we are taking off in Tiziana soon and I can't fit in on the deck along with my little Hyosung scooter!
    But when I am forced ashore, by then I am hoping for a Hydrogen car and my own Hydrolyser!
    Prius is a con. Small diesel cars use less fuel and batteries (cost and recycling) are the big problem for all electrics.

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