Comments on: Nissan bets on electric cars, not biofuels

Your second car will run on electricity, says the automaker's Minoru Shinohara. Ethanol and biodiesel just don't have that cost/benefit equation going for them.

[mr3vil]

More than enough food.

This argument "should we use land for food or fuel" is an unfounded concern. Food at least in the United States is in major abundance. The only reason prices are inflating is due to speculation in the futures markets, just like what's happened to oil and gasoline. In fact, there's plenty of land in this country that lies fallow in the Conservation Reserve Program, 40 million acres as of last October. 40 MILLION acres of perfectly good farmland that's not even being used to grow anything other than native grass.

The problem isn't weather or not there is food to feed the hungry, its a matter of who pays for the food that the hungry can't afford. Unfortunately seed isn't free, in fact Corn and soybean seed is VERY expensive. The fuel the farmer used to till the soil, plant the seed, and harvest the crops isn't free either. Plus, the farmer needs something for the time he spent doing all that.

It's not do we have enough, but whose going to pay for it?

[Manhattan2]

It's more about the energy that needs to go in to the system

There are many studies that show that Ethanol and Biodiesel are negative energy producers when you account for the planting harvesting fertilization and all energy cost that go into farming corn. This is mostly due to the fact that corn captures less than 2% of the suns energy landing on that acre. High efficiency solar collectors that capture 10 times the suns energy will be the answer. Check SolarTransfer to learn more. The solution we are working on could deliver Hydrogen across 3 continents much sooner than others are predicting. We should not be burning our food for energy! Run the numbers! We should also not be installing photovoltaic panels on rooftops. There is a better way! Our engineers have spent half a decade on privately funded applications that will prove to be invaluable in the near future.

[Steve Jordan]

No, there isn't.

Sure food's abundant to us... we get first crack at it. But have you forgotten that America is still the breadbasket for the world? That people around the world are still starving? Or don't you care that, as we use our grains for Ethanol, we'll be taking food out of their mouths?

With a global population approaching 7 billion, the last thing we should be doing is burning our food to drive down the street. We need to be developing electric, and improving battery technology, to save the food for hungry mouths.

[ContraContrarian]

Climate Change will Eliminate Food Surplus

Obviously, you haven't been following (or don't believe) the projections for climate change impact on American agriculture. Basically the Arizona desert will enlarge to include the midwest. I think the coastal will stay productive, but the over effect will be downward.

[jedirock]

Better than GM...

At least they are pushing forward with it. GM came out with an electric car in the early 90s, but they scrapped it, to much speculation. They now push hydrogen and biofuels, but as the article says, biofuels are more expensive and hydrogen is a few decades off. Yes, a few decades, not a few years. Electricity is the best solution for now, so kudos to Nissan.

[maxsell]

Re: Better thasn GM

GM announced the Chevy Volt a few years ago and that will be ready to go in the near future. It can be configured to run on electricity, gasoline, E85 or biodiesel. See the link below. Don't be too hard on GM, they are trying.

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/?seo=goo_electric_car

[orion0782]

Ignorant to suggest that electricity has no societal issues

It is very ignorant to suggest that electric cars are not without environmental concern. Where is the electricity going to come from? Most of the electricity produced in the US comes from coal-fired power plants (ie more CO2 emissions). More plants will need to be created to generate the electricity to power these cars. Will communities want these in their backyard? History suggests they won't.

[tonybelding]

Electrical Power

It's very ignorant to say that "most of the electricity produced in
the US comes from coal-fired power plants". The actual amount
is about 50% currently, and sure to decrease in the future. It
should go without saying that we need to clean up the power
grid: electric cars will benefit from that. There are a lot of ways
to produce electricity.

Furthermore, studies have shown - repeatedly -- that electric
cars charged even from 100% coal-generated power still
produce less CO2 emissions than gasoline cars, due to their
high efficiency. If you bring your power sources down to 50%
coal, then it should beat biofuels pretty easily.

[monty0000]

Electric cars appear to be what we will all be driving..

"here is the electricity going to come from? Most of the electricity produced in the US comes from coal-fired power plants"

You may need to do a little more research on this. There have been a number of studies showing that electric cars may not add any power requirements to our grid due to the time (evenings) that most autos will be recharging. Power grids generally have to pump out a constant amount of power 24 hours. Due to businesses using enormous amount of power during the day for HVAC systems and the like, there is excess power in the evenings when folks go home -- and, in theory, recharge their cars.

While we could debate whether additional power would be needed if we switched all vehicles on the road to electric, there is one argument that is difficult to debate. We are going to have to fix the coal fired plants to some other method for generating electricity. There are areas of the country (Pacific Northwest) where most energy is from renewable resources, but on the East Coast, it is a very different picture. Whether the new energy sources are solar, wind, nuclear, or some other method - we need to start working on replacing them. We will need more power in our future, not less, regardless of the electric car issue, and we need all of our power plants to be generating electricity from sources that do not create CO2.

[Steve Jordan]

Electricity can be produced at home.

Ever heard of solar cells? Put some on your roof, and you're generating power that you can use... to charge your car, for instance. Homes can be their own power generators, and the more that make their own power, the less we'll need from coal-fired plants (or any others, for that matter).

[shera89]

What about powering your car with solar?

Solar power and Plug-in electric cars are a match made in heaven. It's shortsighted to only consider the traditional system of energy production when weighing out the environmental impact of electric cars. No one can deny that solar power is definitely a hot market, no pun intended.

[tonybelding]

Replacing Gasoline

"They (electric cars) are not a replacement for traditional vehicles,"
he said.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that. At the rate battery
technology is improving, EVs and PHEVs could replace a large
portion of "traditional vehicles" over the coming, say, 20 years.

[Erstanfo]

Why not use today's technology in the USA?

I can rent a Nissan Micra in the UK and get 40+ MPG, but I cannot buy it in the USA. There are high efficiency gas and small diesel options in Europe and Japan that we cannot buy in the US. Why re-invent the wheel when there are good technologies already out there?

[mssoot]

because they cant meet US regulations

the US makes it very hard and expensive to meet all the regulations for EPA and DOT.
cars in asia, south america and europe dont meet the requirements necessary to sell them here.
Consider what EPA regs alone have done to the cost of a car in the last 25 years alone. On board computer systems, electronic fuel injection, catalytic converters, Thinner oil modifications to engines ETC. ETC. ETC. ETC. I bet between safety and emissions requirements they have tripled the cost of a car in required modifications to meet US standards.

[Steve Jordan]

Not good enough.

Many European cars are not built to U.S. safety standards, so they are smaller, lighter, and therefore more gas-stingy. Most European diesels are of the old-tech design, so they spew pounds of lung-choking, cancer-causing soot, also counter to U.S. pollution and health regulations.

We should examine every platform, but those vehicles you refer to aren't yet ready for U.S. prime time.

[disco-legend-zeke]

Delivery Vehicles. Stops and Starts are where Electric Shines

Because regenerative braking recovers the vehicle's energy when slowing instead of throwing that energy away as heat, an All Electric Delivery vehicle becomes very efficient.

[theBike45]

Nissan is taking the wrong road

The idea of a city car sounds better than it is - mostly because in cities, there just aren't
many residents who have garages or carports where they can recharge their cars. Ans even city dwellers need to go places outside the city. The only reason Nissan is not building a plug-in is because they simply don't have the technology and are settling for a reduced sized version of the GM EV-1 flop, recently voted one of the worst 50 cars of all time by Time magazine. GM will have an electric with a range extender in production by late 2010. It will destroy the sales of this Nissan vehicle here and in Europe.

[drivin98]

Nissan ftw

There are millions of people who have garages and carports where there cars could be plugged in. What are you even talking about. You sound like that Beuchert idiot.

[acampbell3]

Why wait for automakers?

Everyone's waiting for the magic electric car to come to market that will change everything. I stopped waiting in 2002 when I decided to fix up an old conversion. I work for ZAP and can attest that driving electric is addicting. Last year I traded in that old (90 MPH) solar-electric for a ZAP XEBRA. The XEBRA is a 40 MPH city speed electric car and truck that sells for a little over $10,000. Charge at night and use off-peak electricity to recharge, a vast untapped renewable resource, or plug into your solar home. And Yes it comes with a warranty, parts, service, even financing. Note, even counting coal fired power plants, electric cars reduce emissions by more than 90 percent (EPRI, CARB, Coalition of 12 NE States, Union of Concernced Scientists). It takes more energy to create ethanol or biodiesel than it does to burn straight gasoline. LITTLE KNOWN FACTOID: One of the biggest industrial consumers of electricity in the country are oil refineries.

Take a test drive today...
http://www.katu.com/news/consumer/Other/9539367.html?video=YHI&t=a

[peedycat]

Electric Cars and Energy

There is no question that electric power has great utility in powering automobiles. My Prius gets a year-round average of 50 MPG in average driving of 15,000 miles per year. A plug in recharging version would surely double this.
The only problem is the need for massive electric power generation growth in the future; the only viable solution is nuclear power, including fuel reprocessing and breeder reactors.
Ethanol is useful as a food supplement (Jack Daniels?}, but as long as there are hungry people in the world, burning it is perhaps even immoral. In fact all the other fuel proposals are either ridiculously wasteful of energy, or excessively polluting, or ludicrously expensive or they have some combination of these problems.
There is enough coal and tar sands to supply us with the liquid fuel required for cars, but homes should all convert to electric power for heating. With the above scenario, we would solve the energy problem, the US dependence on imported oil, and the global warming problem. The only immoral part might be that the Arabs will have to invent a way to make food from their oil,

[drivin98]

whatever

Nuclear isn't the only viable solution. Solar, wind, and geo-thermal (not to mention plenty of existing night time capacity) would do it just fine. I'd explain it to you in detail but hey, you have google just like me.

[chinanews]

Nissan is too late to start Electric Cars.

China auto companies lead the world in electric car research and will manufacture high way pure electric car starting in 2008. Right now, there are electric bus, small car, and millions of electric bike are running in street.

Chinese electric cars will be in the US market late 2008 or early 2009 I believe.

Two of US companies right now sell Chinese Electric cars, one of them is Zap http://www.zapworld.com

[drivin98]

Zapped?

I think most Americans don't see the Zap 3 wheel low speed thing-a-ma-bob as more than a novelty item. Miles Automotive may have some success with their car from China but that certainly doesn't mean Nissan is too late to start making electric cars. Americans are quickly losing faith in Chinese products whereas they have a lot of confidence in Japanese products.

[rdrobertson]

Nissan - Ahead of the Game?

Nissan, by focusing on purely-electric cars, may be positioning itself ahead of the competition, once new battery technology becomes available.

Several companies and researchers have announced major breakthroughs in battery capacity, which is all that has been keeping the electric car from widespread adoption. Within a few years, batteries (or ultra-capacitors) that can power a car for hundreds of miles on a single charge may be available.

Electric cars have many potential advantages over internal combustion cars: simpler design, much more reliable, no more tuneups or oil changes required, much lower energy (fuel) costs, zero emissions, etc.

[PeekOyle]

Just to counter a few points made above.

1. The GM EV1 was a test car that was available for lease, there was only about 1500 of them made. You couldnt buy one! Thats how GM was able to crush them. Therefore saying that the EV1, which was obviously a test platform, was a flop etc seems rather pointless.

2. I'm really getting sick and tired of ppl bringing up the 'The long tail-pipe theory' whenever EV's are mentioned. It's been proven numerous times that the 'Wheel to Wheel' efficiency of EV's powered by coal-fired electricity is always superior to the 'Wheel to Wheel' efficiency of ICE vehicles.