We Don’t Need No Stinking Sparky Cars

12 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Sparky Cars”

1. The green solution (in terms of carbon feet) is to buy used. Bucket trucks have a used market like any other vehicle. Here is a simple example.
   http://www.buckettrucks.com/listings/used-bucket-trucks/
   You can get a decent used vehicle with a full 60′ boom for 40 to 65k. That means you can pick up five of these for the price of an electric. Hell, buy one diesel and save $65,000 vs. a new one. Use the remainder for fleet maintenance. If you buy an electric, who’s going to fix it, and how much will that cost?
   This fits in the crazy people category.

2. In my recent experience the only comercial application of electric is with lift trucks (tow-motors).
   Used electrics are cheap (scrap price)….until you realize the cost of a new battery and then the cost of rebuilding everything from switches/contacts to motors because the dud battery smoked those components with low voltage.
   Propane lift trucks are more popular just for that reason…new or used.

3. The unfortunate solution to the price disparity will be to increase the price of diesel trucks by imposing zero emission regulations.

4. Subsidy: When people who can’t afford something pay for a discount for people who can.

5. Nonsense….”our supremely wise government is paying outfits to buy electric trucks and covering the costs.”….the Zero is just proving to the useful idiots that he was right,gubermints built and builds everything,including money.

6. $198,000 for nothing but a feeling. Frickin’ retarded.

7. Leave it to the dyslexic left to always make the staggeringly wrong decision. In perusing American energy independence from conflict oil and given the choice of developing ample domestic energy discoveries or perusing a technological green utopian unicorn – well, you can see lefty will opt out for the magic pixie dust every time.
   Green tech transportation is 20-30 years off – until battery tech (and the environmentally sound practices are rationalized in the extensive mining and metallurgic/chemical refining needed for battery manufacture) catches up with the power demands of reliable multi person/cargo electric transport requirements. You would think the answer lies in developing and using domestic fuel while funding green tech at the development (not manufacturing) level. But you know lefty, he still believes in the magic energy tooth fairy.
   I personally believe that these greenie weenie utopian thinkers should not be allowed near the levers of power at the best of times but in times of national crisis or restructuring, they should be absolutely banned from decision making. We really don’t need to waste precious time and revenue perusing fairy tale solutions where hard economics and hard science are needed.

8. These touchy-feely vehicles are not made for math majors. A base Toyota Prius will run about $24,000, while a similar sized Toyota Matrix can be had for about $19,000 new. The Chevy Volt is a really bad deal at $40,000, although government incentives drop the number some.

9. The scientific solution is to demand a sufficiently high goal for Electric Cars that all other (consumer) specifications will be easy to achieve…They must be “Proven” reliable & cost effective, in the process, or no Government Money..
   The State of California MUST run/operate all Emergency Vehicles (ambulances), Police Cars, & Schools Bus’s… 100% Electric…Easy
   Note:
   The Obama Administration is now using the Green agenda to launder money to their big financial contributors. They have zero chance of success as the sucking sound of all the Money disappearing occurs before they even get started…

10. What we can expect from a Mulcair government.
    It is curious that the biens-pensants have discovered electrical. It shows where their “minds” are stuck. Industry has never had a problem with electrical vehicles, such as fork lifts, or with natural gas. As for natural gas, it is widely used in taxis and even some private cars. My local gas station also sells natural gas. For a largish private car about half of the trunk goes for gas cylinders.
    Here I am writing away but I am not sure what the point of the article is. Electricity has been used in trucks and other vehicles from the beginning, in specialised applications. Natural gas has been widely used in transportation for the last thirty years or so, probably longer. The US Government likes to throw money away. None of this is news.

11. “study findings showing that electric vehicles can cost 9% to 12% less to operate than diesel-powered trucks when used to make deliveries on a daily basis in large cities.”
    Ill bet they didn’t include down time in those calculations. Computer fault downtime has been so expensive in recent years that my fuel guzzeling smoke belching 3406 425 hp. cat powered 1979 Kenworth turns out to be the most cost effective truck I ever drove. I drove it 420,000 miles with no more than scheduled maintenance. As I used to say to guys who teased me about my slow truck. “It takes a hell of a fast truck to beat a day in the shop.

12. I think their comments are disabled:
    I’d like to know:
    a. What the operators think – I’m guessing they hate them. ( Gee, give me a limited range, hard to refuel, truck that may short out if driven though water)
    b. How long they last? the battery… $$$$
    c. Why you’d bother.
    Hey, electrical is good, in the right place, somehow this seems forced.
    Oh, wait, mal-investment because of subsidy. duh.
    feh.