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June 2008 Posts
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Ah... my audio was pretty miserable on that one! The good news is that I got my Skype headset working finally. I'd just reinstalled skype and lost all my settings, so it wasn't trying to use the headset, of course. Oops. All set now though!
Thanks guys. Was fun talking with you. I tried my best to stay out of politics, and because of that, some of my answers weren't quite what I wanted. Especially about battery availability and if I was happy about the price of gas.
As for the price of gas part - I don't like anybody to suffer. Yet here we are... suffering because of high fuel costs that touch every part of our lives. And I need to point out that we brought this on ourselves. Nobody forced us to keep using gas. Nobody forced us to commute in full-size SUVs. Sure it seemed silly to get an EV when gas was $1.60/gallon. But only if you ignored the writing on the wall. Anybody remember the 70's? I didn't get into EVs because of the current or even future price of gas. I did it to do my best to divorce myself from an energy source that was both killing us and being controlled by somebody outside our borders. Now it looks like I was really smart because of the cost of gas. But again... that misses the point. It is icing on the cake now, but is still not my most compelling reason to drive an EV (or ride a bike!)
Being reactionary is painful and expensive. Witness today's gas prices. Would have been easier and cheaper to fix the problem years ago when we had the tools and knowledge. But why? When gas is cheap, there is no reason to change, apparently. The most important thing to consumers is what something costs "at the pump." None of the politics or health issues matter... until those issues bring us higher gas prices. When the price of gas goes up, we blame it on something other than our own apathy. Those terrible oil people! Why are they trying to hurt us? Ha. Our current society - our way of life - is built on a cheap source of energy that is finitie, that we have no control over, that is destroying our environment and our health. Amazing.
Are high gas prices really a surprise to anybody?
Whoa. Where did you find that picture of me? I almost look normal. I'm all dressed up!
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Oh, and the 127,000 mile Rav4EV that was the last one sold on Ebay went for $46,000 (I mistakenly said $50,000). See item #330242686556
In the previous two weeks, TWO Rav4EV's sold for $70,000 each (one on Ebay, and one privately). This high mileage one is notable, even if the price was so relatively low by today's standards. It is the first one sold with (well!) over 100,000 miles. And it still sold for more than the MSRP.
Who'd have thought that my best financial vestment in the past ten years would have been an automobile? Probblem is... I'm not selling. On paper, my total expenditure for this car - including ALL fuel, maintenance, insurance, accessories, and the initial price of the car - is about (-)30,000. Not bad for 5.5 years of driving, huh?
Went to wikipedia and read about the RAV4EV and mention Texaco and some other company bought the battery for the RAV4EV. Thus, they don't sell it anymore. If that ain't a conspiracy then what is? But, it does show old Nimh technology is capable of running an electric car fine.
Bo:
Bring Darrell back. It was a very enjoyable interview. There are a few questions that I have for him.
1) Does the RAV EV charge when coasting like a Prius? I have one (Prius) and I believe most charging comes from the electic motor rather than the brakes.
2) What is the difference between the Prius battery set and the RAV battery set?
3) Having a prius I am impressed with the engineering. Isn't it true that a Prius demonstates that Toyota could market a pluggin Prius tomorrow. In fact, you could buy the plug option for the Prius. What is Toyota waiting for..stable historic high gasoline prices?
Rod
Rod,
Regarding
" I have one (Prius) and I believe most charging comes
from the electic motor rather than the brakes."
Most of the energy in the battery comes from the gasoline motor charging it. The brakes typically only generate a small amount.
If you look at the Prius display, there are little green cars showing how much energy was recovered from the brakes. Each green car represents 50Watt-hours, which is enough to drive the car about 1/4 of a mile.
Thanks
John C. Briggs
