WI EV1's weren't destroyed?

Now, if they had kept at it, they showed off a number of concepts in 1998-99 of series and parallel hybrids (The Prius is a parallel hybrid), and if they had made one of those, it would have been the first hybrid, which probably would have given GM a great PR boost and maybe even made them a bit of money.
No, it wouldn't have been. Series hybrids had been produced by 1901 and and parallel hybrids before 1910. I mean produced, not just prototypes or one-offs. For an example of each, see the Lohner-Porsche Mixte and the Auto-Mixte (designed by Henri Pieper). Just be aware that most of what's on the web is at least mildly inaccurate.
 
I admit, I'm one of the skeptics here where if an electric vehicle is to be viable, it needs to have a good range, maybe 300 miles at the low end, perhaps 700 miles at the high end and can be recharged in 5 minutes, well, fairly quickly although you'd probably need huge wires to handle the amperage needed for that. IMHO, for an electrical car to succeed, hybrid is the way to go. I think a good idea is to use a minature gas turbine engine as a generator for a hybrid and I think the University of Utah did such a conversions with an EV-1, making it a hybrid. Still, it is a shame the EV-1's were destroyed, same with the gas turbine cars.

Apparently the daily commute of 75% of Americans is 33 miles, so 100 miles on the EV1's charge would probably be adequate for a lot of peoples needs. Personally I think that when fuel becomes so expensive that electric cars become viable we won't be driving 300-700 miles, we'll be taking the train.
 
The trains that will enter service because petrol is so friggin expensive we won't be able to drive cars.
 
The next Tesla vehicle, a sedan vehicle, solves the battery charging problem by allowing you to swap out battery packs in roughly the same amount of time it takes to fuel a vehicle. So you can pull up to a gas station that also has Tesla battery packs and swap one out. In addition, they have the technology to allow a charge in 45 minutes. Range is expected to be up to 300 miles on a single charge. That is more than adequate for the needs of the vast majority of Americans.

Torqumada
 
For the moment, but that will change when the petrol become expensive enough. Even so a diesel train is much better on fuel than a petrol car, especially since cars usually only carry 1.5 people.
 
when cars become cost-prohibitive to use, the suburbs will be put to the torch and rendered into farmland, and everyone will move back into the city and use bicycles on a regular basis.

and monkeys might fly out of my butt in military formation.
 
Folks, let's try to stick to the topic at hand, ya know? ;)

I agree with those people who wonder why GM did not look at gas-electric systems before. (They are doing that now - that's what the Volt is.) After all, the first successful GM diesel locomotives (The E and F series) were first made before WWII. Electric motors for trucks and trains are excellent tools, because they make maximum torque right off idle, when you most need it if you are moving a heavy load. The same could also be true with cars.
 
when cars become cost-prohibitive to use, the suburbs will be put to the torch and rendered into farmland, and everyone will move back into the city and use bicycles on a regular basis.

and monkeys might fly out of my butt in military formation.
Comrade, thank you for explaining the origin those formations of flying monkeys. That clears it all up.
 
I was reading a while ago that electric motors aren't the way to go for trucks, some sort of hydraulic-pneumatic setup that I didn't understand was apparently great for big trucks.
 
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