My 88 Cherokee has 490,000 miles on the clock. My 92 Clubwagon has 212,000 miles my 96 Voyager has 195,000 miles. Even my 74 VW Thing has 74,000 miles on it. I even managed to squeeze 22-24mpg out of the cherokee (31" tires lift etc..) until ETHANOL came along. now I lost 15% to 25% or more of my fuel economy across the board. Horaay! :-(

Cars CAN LAST if taken care of. An ALuminum NIMH powered electric car built right direct drive can be sold for under $15,000 and should EASILY last 25 years VIRTUALLY MAINTENANCE FREE including the battery without much trouble.

The battery is good for 250,000 miles the aluminum frame and plastic body would be rust proof and corrosion resistant everything else is solid state and uncomplicated.

Not even close man. you see you FORGET to factor in what we NO LONGER NEED when we go to electric.

a E95 NIMH powered car is good to go for MINIMUM 250,000 miles before you need to replace the batteries.

for the average american thats 22 years or MORE and that just to 80% capacity if your usage is less than 80% of the batteries original capacity then you might get another decade or MORE before having to change the battery.

SO lets compare. ONE NIMH battery pack.

what did I REMOVE to get that battery. ENTIRE ENGINE gone. ALL accessories attached to engine GONE Transmission GONE fuel tank GONE emissions system and entire exhaust system GONE Cooling system GONE smog system GONE

source of 90% of expensive automotive repairs GONE

We replace it with 3 things. An electric motor with ONE single moving part that will outlive you outlive your kids and probably outlive THEIR KIDS as well. A fully solid state battery and a fully solid state controller.

Add in a heat pump for heat and AC.

No power steering (just another electric motor) No radiator. NO water pump No power steering pump NO alternator etc.. etc.. etc..

all that goes away along with 20+ years worth of replacement parts and maintenance and fluids needed to keep those parts going.

you replaced ALL OF THAT with an electric motor solid state battery and controller. ALL of which will outlast YOU except the battery which will last nearly 3 times LONGER than the average person keeps a car and only cost $4500 to replace in 22 or so years.

I bet the FLUIDS ALONE that you use in your car now over 20 years are GREATER in environmental impact than the ONE battery for an electric car. JUST THE FLUIDS.

there is NO COMPARISON between them. even if we use 100% COAL power plants and NO renewables electric cars are NIGHT AND DAY better for the environment and our wallets than gas cars.

Nano Solar is working on $1 a watt solar panels (already making them just need to RAMP up production)

so for under $3000 you can put a small array on the roof of your house and a grid tie in within your garage and now you pay NOTHING for the power to charge your car (the watts the panel generates over a month would be greater than the watts you use to charge the car over time NO this size panel could not charge the car DIRECTLY in a timely manner)

so take a $13,000 electric car (IT IS possible to do one for that price full retail) add in $3000 and for $16,000 you have a car that will last you AT LEAST 20-25 years before you need to do ANY major maintenance to it and cost you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to drive (fuel costs) once you have paid off that $16,000.

and you wonder why they BURIED IT and DO NOT WANT TO BUILD THEM. This is why GM sold the patent for the E95 NIMH packs to Texaco/Chevron and why Chevron will NEVER let you have them so long as that patent is in force.

screw lithium air screw 10x times the range screw the tesla.

What I want is a 4 door mid size sedan with NIMH batteries that does 100miles a day.

Here are the reasons.

#1 it can be built for under $13,000 FULL RETAIL
#2 its proven ready to go technology
#3 its virtually maintenance free
#4 the battery is good for at least 250,000 miles to 80% range
#5 the batteries are DIRT cheap to replace when I need to in 20+ years

Need I go on?

You say your screwed if you need to go on a road trip. I say your not using your brain.

I drive 54 miles ONE WAY to work. Drive to work. Charge up Drive home Charge up. Seems simple to me.

NO MORE GAS. I would trade my current $3500-$4000 gasoline bill each year for a $300 a YEAR electric bill increase. $3500 or $300 do the math.

the car would be FREE in under 4 years JUST in gasoline savings.

Nothing to break down virtually maintenance free no moving parts to speak of besides the electric motor axles and wheels.

If I could AFFORD to buy a prius (I can't) it would take me 138 years to BREAK EVEN in gasoline savings over just KEEPING my 28mpg minivan I already have. 68 years if I compared it to a brand new $10,000 kia etc..

Are you kidding me? thats NUTS! its physically impossible to "save money" buying a prius unless your a cab driver maybe.

Problem is GM sold the NIMH patent we need to Texaco/Chevron when they killed the EV1 Electric car project. So we are screwed since chevron REFUSES to let anyone license the tech for CAR usage.

there are E95 NIMH powered Toyota RAV 4's STILL on the road today. some with over 150,000 miles on the battery pack. So far ZERO degradation in the battery. ZERO.

these people get 80-110 miles PER CHARGE.

Compared to the 40miles in the volt. Consider this. The average LEAD ACID battery powered home built electric car conversion averages 40 miles range. DO YOU REALLY think its a coincidence that the volt also only goes 40 miles. I do not believe in coincidences. OH and the average lead acid conversion costs about $8000. (alas I need 60 miles or I would DO ONE in a heart beat)

Hydrogen is a SCAM. average mpg will be around 35mpg equivalent and its going to cost you $7 to $8 a gallon equivalent for hydrogen.

How about they just put out a nice under $10,000 1.5l diesel that gets 50mpg (they already do this in europe though I think its more than $10,000)

Or better yet REVOKE the chevron NIMH patent put this STIMULUS money into a nimh production factory HERE ON US SOIL and COMPEL the auto makers to start making under $15,000 Aluminum Framed 100+mile range Direct Drive NIMH powered 4 door midsize sedans.

as for the devil. He is dead. I went to hell. He pissed me off. I nuked the place. Why do you think its on fire! :-)

well I have yet to touch an SD card that was anywhere NEAR as fast as my CF cards especially when connected with a computer. My Firewire CF card reader is so stinking fast its a pleasure to download 16gb's from it.

Now my SD cards even my extreme II SD cards are painfully slow in comparison. it drives me NUTS even the newest just out cards max out at 30mb/s and I get no where even remotely slightly or vaguely close to that in ANY reader I have tried so far.

Drives me nuts that no one makes a GOOD SD card reader.

I would love it if they let me "double up" the MSD cards say the new 4 card unit where it was pairs of 2 and the pics where saved to BOTH cards at the same time for redundancy. Now that would be a neat trick.

Not sure if that could work with video.

I also love my magic jack even though I don't use it much. the only thing that saves it is voicemail so you DON'T have to leave a computer on. If you need 24/7 access to a phone line you ARE in fact better off with vonage as its going to cost you $25+ in electricity a month to run the damned computer 24/7 (unless off course you already do that)

what magic jack REALLY needs is to replace the USB port with an ETHERNET PORT.

there problem solved. No more computer needed. I really wish they would do that. Might have to give a thin client a wack have to see how much power it consumes.

Hah the "music" in the second video has the F word in it and they left it :-)

Actually its not too bad. Now mind you I have not RIDDEN one yet

I have an 82 Goldwing and I love how I get to sit straight up on it. Very comfortable

I was also leery of this prone position but my buddy has an R1 and I sat on it (he is rebuilding it so not running yet and I do not consider myself skilled enough yet to try riding that beast) but I have to say it was NOT uncomfortable. your "gut" rests on the tank and provides quite a but of support. I was surprised how "easy" it felt. Now after an hour of riding I have no idea but initially I was surprosed.

Now I am a big boy 420 pounds 6'4" so that might skew things a bit.

DOLT 90's should be 80's though we also had them in the early 90's as well.

Actually comparing to the 90's is a bad idea since 35 40 50mpg was NOT uncommon in that era :-)

really gives you a new insight on today's cars ehh :-)

Hmm $2.50 per 100 miles is actually pretty good for lithium packs (they use about 1.5 to 2 times more power than a NIMH pack because of "cooling" requirements)

And remember if you add some solar panels to your roof once Nano Solar starts selling 90cent a watt panels it will only cost you $2600 to add a Grid Tie in ($1600) and a solar array ($1000) Now you can't CHARGE the car via solar but you can sell that electricity back to the grid and "offset" the power you use to charge this car 100% ie its FREE to drive even of electricity costs.

Well ok for this car you would need at $1500 array so $3100 total (lithium uses more power so you need a larger array to offset the power)

Still a great deal if you can afford the payments.