thelinuxlink.net

Although I don't commute a lot now I started to wonder if it is economically viable to get an all electric vehicle. More specifically, is it viable to convert a gas guzzler to electric? The costs for the materials (I hear) is around 6-10k. Having the conversion done for you brings the total cost up to around 15k.

I hear that there are lots of incentives either tax or grants that can reduce that cost. In addition, selling the gas guzzling parts may also reduce the cost. With all that in mind, is it finally viable?

No, there is still an offset of electric bill vs gas bill to figure in to your costs.

I'm all for giving oil the heave ho but I think we need to temper things a bit. The Chevy Volt is coming out next year and it's not a hybrid. It's a straight plugin and will require charging when you get home. How much will your electric bill go up if you use one of these cars? How much of an impact will 1/10/20/50/100 million drivers have on the power grid? We're going to need a serious upgrade in our electricity production in the coming years. Personally I don't have a problem with nuclear power plants and wind farms. A lot people are o.k. with them as long as it's not in their neck of the woods but go apeshit if it's anywhere near them.

I would love to see us reduce our dependancy on foreign oil (or on oil in general.) I am not an expert on the subject, but I think that electrical power is usually created using either nuclear, coal, wind, solar etc. I don't think that oil is used to create electricity (I don't know that for sure though)

In any case, I think it would be a huge boost to the economy if we started wholesale adoption of suplementary solar power on homes. With the judicial use of grants and tax incentives we can start getting solar on houses. Here in FL grants and tax breaks pay for 80% of a 5kwh system.

I think it would neat if solar panel vendors linked up with electric car providers and made a package deal. Buy the volt and a 5kwh solar settup...

(ack... starting to sound like a tree hugger which I am not... just don't wanna send money to the middle east anymore for oil)

It's not such a bad thing to insure that they are depending on our consumption of their oil. That is kind of the idea with open trade with China and other things. It's security. It's also the reason that when we created a crisis because of our credit system, it effected the whole world. It is because we are all inter-Dependant. And that is the way that our governments would like it to stay. This is also why investing in gold is a bad idea. When people are without work and the value of the dollar is crashing then what on earth are you doing to do with gold? Go to Europe? No, our consumption, even tourism effects the euro. And it's the same all around the world. But eh...solar sounds fantastic. I don't understand why we can't just have solar panels on the roof of our cars that charge the batteries, or at least run the alternator to charge them.

And I would as well. Also, according to this web site on energy a percent of our power needs are provided with oil. http://www.powerscorecard.org/tech_deta ... ource_id=8