Maybe you should go back to another historical definition of a car, the Citroen 2CV, which had a 425cc 12 Hp engine in its original inCARnation, and moved up to 600cc and 18Hp later. Four passengers, great reliability and durability, frontwheel drive or traction avant as they say, lawnmower simplicity and even a heater of sorts. Cheap, too.

Similar vehicles abound in Japan, although their cramped locales and short statures led to vehicles that are seen as too small but needn't be. We need to get over the two tons of metal syndrome and I don't feel the obligation to be polite about it anymore. Other countries have taxed the overpowered and overweight vehicles to the margins, but the political will isn't apparent here. There is a transportational reality between SUVs and bicycles.

That Citroen could do this in 1949 backs my argument that we are just stupid and greedy. When the beloved 2CV finally ceased production sometime in the 90's as I recall, there were huge riots and protests. Granted, there are some new designs in Europe that get great mileage too and are a lot safer and more comfortable, but my point is that we have to give up on the American definition of a car. It's over.

I ran a 2CV for many years back in the 60's and 70's, a 'camionette' or van version dubbed Tooloose Le Truck, and filled it's five gallon tank for about $2. Less than a penny a mile. Two race motorcycles, tools, and gas fit in the back and two maniacs in the front. You just had to be sure to leave early.

Sure, these things only went 50 mph, but so what. Compared to air travel, all cars are slow, and compared to a horse, 12hp is multiples faster. I'd like to see a national 50 mph limit and a 20 hp limit. We'd kill a lot fewer innocents and cut the carbon way down and still get where we're going with a lot less stress and aggro. Why drive a multi liter multi ton can at 70 mph to end up idling in a traffic jam?

Our current 'arrangement' of the automobile is just plain stupid.

expat quotes:

To operate a 40-horsepower car for one hour, the panel shown would have to charge batteries for 250 hours. Even to operate a golf cart, charging time would be unacceptable. The panel shown could operate the taillights, but certainly not the headlights, of a standard car.

You may find this understandable, but you don't understand why it's grossly misleading to the point of fraud:

• The vehicle isn't a 40-horsepower car, it's probably more like 5 HP.
• Even a 40 HP car doesn't run at full power all the time.  A small car at cruise probably uses 12-20 horsepower on the highway, much less at 45-50 MPH.
• The proper measure is energy/distance, not peak power.
• If the NEV ("golf cart") uses 100 watt-hours per mile, 120 watts to its batteries will yield about 1.2 miles of driving for each hour in the sun.

Either the author doesn't understand what he's talking about, or he's lying.  He has just blown any right to be taken as an authority on the subject.

How many cars are there in Arizona? And are the cars more important than AC/heating?

There are lots, and (to give proper credit) the author is correct about the rightly-maligned Arizona alternate fuel vehicle tax credit (which is not unlike the US flex-fuel CAFE credit).  However, if Arizona citizens covered their roofs with solar-thermal concentrators, they could produce all the heat and cooling (via absorption A/C) they could use while charging their electric vehicles.  There is no reason for Arizona to be obtaining most of its energy needs from oil and coal.

The Gem car has a 10 grand base sticker price, 13 grand as equipped when Chrysler demoed it at old town market, and may be elgible for a six grand federal tax rebate. It will also allow Chrysler to meet federal fleet mileage requirements and keep selling dodge pickups and suvs.

If this product meets Alan's needs, that is great. I'm not against all subsidies. I'm against stupid subsidies.

The point Arizona Legislaturer was making is that somebody can sell $900 worth of solar crap for $2700 because the buyer is elgible for tax breaks. Without this product benefitting anybody.

I've got solar panels on my house of which the government paid 40% of the cost. $2000 tax credit from the feds and $3.50 a watt from the municpal owned utility. But this benefits myself and my community. And I'm not going to get rich doing this. I'll probably get a reasonable rate of return depending on future electric prices.

How are we going to produce additional electricity going forward. The three possibilities that I see are, "clean" coal for which a demo plant doesn't exist let alone a commercial operating plant, liquified natural gas which is also ridiculously expensive and then the overseas gas runs out, and wind power which is also subsidized. It is illegal to build a nuke in california. You can try to build one in arizona and run a power line here, but the bananas will try to prevent you from building the power line. Presently, clean coal is a scam, where a utility will make cosmetic changes to the coal without benefitting anybody and be elgible for federal money.

Ethanol is another method the government hands out money without improving the energy situation. Of course farmers have been subsidized since the great depression and this only differs by scale and lack of transparency.

I've read some disturbing things about the reliability of sterling engines for thermosolar plants. But it isn't my field. I wonder if they too are simply farming the government.

I doubt that PV panels on NEVs are the way to go. A much better approach would be to mount them as a canopy over NEV parking spaces at parking lots, and provide metered recharging. This is the best way to match up daily max insolation with the actual location of the vehicle. As a bonus, you keep the NEV shaded during the day (thus making it a little more bearable for a non-air-conditioned trip home), and protect it from rain or snow.

These folks are confusing "amps" (which is energy flow) with "amp-hours" (which is energy at 48 volts, as in a gallon of gasoline). A common mistake, if it is in fact a mistake instead of an intentional salesman's lie.

Their brochure states that the solar top they are selling produces 180 watts, or 3 amps @ 60 volts. During a 6 hour day, these panels might produce an average of 100 watts, given that they are positioned horizontally. That might add 600 watt-hours to the batteries. For comparison, I have 8 golf cart batteries, which I used as a backup system. The batteries are 6 volts, 220 amp-hrs, for a 48 volt system. I calculated that this battery bank might hold some 10.5 kw-hr of electricity.

In short, these are not solar powered cars, since the batteries might only be re-charged over a 3 or 4 day period. This is another sales scam, as we say in the early 1980's. The idea is to sell expensive systems which are designed to take advantage of the various credits available without really doing anything except enriching the sellers. They claim that the IRS credits are about $990 for their system costing $3,300. State credits would also apply. Solar panels are available for about $4/peak watt, thus 180 watts of PV panels would otherwise cost $720. These guys are selling their solar tops for $2,700.

Ripoff alert!

E. Swanson

GEMCars and other small electric vehicles are quite useful.

We need to combine changes in vehicles with changes in our ways of thinking about our trips under 50 miles, along with altering neighborhood travel patterns and especially speeds.

Slower, smaller, human scale transportation will be more predominant.

Active transportation -- walking and biking --will be most important for us.

This is the thing we have to get through thick skulls. Automobiles (not to mention SUVs, minivans, pickup trucks, etc.) are Dead Men Walking. There is NO realistic energy scenario that can be devised to enable continuation of BAU when it comes to conventional gasoline-powered ICE private passenger vehicles - NONE. The future of all of them is the junkyard. There is no point using the private passenger vehicle as any type of yardstick in evaluating future energy & transport options.

The only realistic future scenarios are either: a) human powered transport (walking, bicycles) + a little animal-powered transport (must be just a little, not that many horses left, and not enough land for pasturage & feed); or b) some combination of i) electrified rail transport (per Alan Drake) + ii) biodiesel powered shuttle buses & essential heavy equipment & public service vehicles + iii) very small & lightweight electric vehicles for local personal transport (NEVs) where necessary + iv) walking or bicycle where possible.

If we don't make option b happen, we will not get BAU private passenger automobiles, we will get option a - period.

A lot of people aren't going to like the prospect of life with out the gasoline powered ICS private passenger automobile, but I bet they would like even less the prospect of only being able to get around on foot (or bicycle, if fortunate, or horse-drawn carriage or coach if really fortunate).

Could an electric assist bicycle be considered an ultralight electric car? Half horsepower motor and I actually do pedal.
On a flat surface, pedalling will add about 3 mph. 100 watts of me and 400 watts of motor. Up a steep hill, pedalling will double my speed from 4mph to 8mph. In low gear, I think I contribute as much torque as the motor does. The motor has one fixed gear.