@TeeCee

"Diesels. Pollute like it's going out of fashion "

Erm. No.

A 10 Year old Model, possibly. One built by an American manufacturer, probably. Even a modern diesel that hasn't been properly maintained - maybe.

Modern, European / Japanese Diesel Cars < 7 Years Old that have been properly maintained? No. And newer ones are even cleaner.

Not to mention that Diesel engines generally last 2-3 times longer than equivalent Petrol/Gas engines.... You wouldn't buy a petrol car that had done much more than 150,000miles and expect it to last very long.

You *would* expect a decent diesel to easily do twice that. (I have a friend with an 04 VW Bora PD TDi that has done 450,000miles and is still going strong) So how much pollution is caused by the manufacture of all those replacement Petrol cars?

Getting Back ON topic - it's good to see that they are going for a more "affordable" car, but I agree with other posters on here that by the time it gets to the UK it will likely be £30,000 If not more.

Currently the Vauxhall/Opal Ampera looks like the best of a bad bunch, but god knows how much that will be by the time they've added "Blighty Tax"

@EC, @Gary F

It seems the latest craze of the serial "find some little thing wrong with electric vehicles" brigade is the ~40% efficiency of our national grid to the socket in the home, binging such statements as:

-----

Charged by... By EC Posted Monday 1st June 2009 11:00 GMT

All charged by a national grid which loses the majority (64% by memory) of the power between the powerstation and the socket.......

-----

Stupid people By Gary F Posted Monday 1st June 2009 12:19 GMT

Mains powered vehicles generate twice as much CO2 as a normal petrol vehicle......

------

WRONG

You aren't comparing Apples to Apples.

EV's convert 80-85% of the electricity that they take in into motive force. Even taking losses through the National grid into account that's still 30-35% efficient.

ICE powered cars only convert about 15-20% of the energy stored in petrol / diesel into motive force.

So EVs are actually about TWICE as efficient.

LOL @ the Fanbois

<chuckle>

Fanybois make me smile.

Regular Person: "I don't want an iPhone because it can't ...."

Apple Fanboi: "SILENCE! THE iPHONE IS THE BEST! IF IT CAN'T DO SOMETHING THEN IT ISN'T WORTH DOING! YOU ARE A MORON IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING THAT THE iPHONE CAN'T DO! EVERY DEVICE EVER CREATED WITH A TOUCH SCREEN IS JUST COPYING THE iPHONE! ANY PHONE RELEASED FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME WILL BE A CHEAP KNOCK-OFF! I WANT TO SUCK OFF STEVE JOBS AND SWALLOW HIS STICKY MESS!"

Seriously - that's how you come across.

3Com? Pah!

After what they did in 2000, they can sod off if they think they're getting any of our money.

We used to be a 3Com House - Had Netbuilders and Corebuilders galore, plus Superstacks at the edge.

In 2000, they just threw their toys out of the pram, dropped all support of their installed kit and Fucked Off.

We were completely screwed and had to rebuild our entire infrastructure.

3Com will get no money from us - Ever.

@They fail to explain one thing

"A little law concerning the conservation of energy tell us that either way we will need the same amount of energy whether it comes from petrol or electricity"

Er.. kind of. You aren't taking efficiency into account though are you? ICEs are wildly inefficient... Far less efficient than the charging of a battery from mains, which discharges into a motor - even taking power loss through the National grid into account.

You are making the assumption that 1MW of power produced at a coal fired power station, and delivered to your home / filling station via the national grid produces the same amount of CO2 as, say 20 Fossil fueled cars producing 40KW of power. This assumption is utterly ridiculous.

"...and since we produce electricity using fossil fuel..."

Correction: "we CURRENTLY produce MOST OF OUR electricity using fossil fuels."

Electricity can be generated from dozens, if not hundreds of different sources, and while the majority of it is currently produced in gas, or coal fired stations, this can change, and is changing - albeit quite slowly.

Wind, Tidal, Wave, Nuclear, Solar, Geo-Thermal and a few others are already being put into use all over the world. Hell, if we wanted it badly enough we could chuck a satellite up in orbit to convert solar energy to microwave and beam it down to earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite#cite_note-9

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/20/0149254

You also aren't taking into account micro-generation - i.e. solar, wind and hydro in the home... Almost anyone can get solar PV panels put on their roof(all you need is a roof within 45Degrees of south), or a wind turbine in their garden (if they have one) - several rural areas even have hydro-power from rivers & streams - essentially free (post-setup costs, of course) energy with 0 emissions.

YES there are issues with the manufacture of Lithium Ion batteries and the emissions caused during manufacture.

YES there will be a greater load on the national grid (But they are going to have plenty of notice of the changes and should adapt)

YES there are issues for people who don't have garages or some other means of charging their vehicles.

NO it isn't perfect, but there isn't going to be a perfect solution, certainly not around the corner anyway.

Plug-In hybrids are just a stepping stone - they have the ability to be 100% electric and POTENTIALLY 0% CO2 emissions for 90-95% of their use (i.e. commuting to work) while being able to fall back on petrol (or preferably diesel) for the odd longer journey.

I'm typing this message on my new Lambo Lappy....

It just finished charging - and I've got a whole 13 minutes of battery life!

And American Seats are more comfy....

Because they're designed for people weighing 300pounds.

Ooooh. Too easy?

More Lynching (@AC Monday 23rd February 2009)

"Or because there friend said so on facebook"

<RANT>

Aaargh!

You mean THEIR !!!!

Their : (Belonging)

There : (Location)

They're : (They Are)

</RANT>

I sort of agree with your statement however.

<MINI RANT> And you mean "I", not "i" !! </MINI RANT>

MKV? SMB? Region Free?

When they hell are these simple, blindingly obvious flaws / omissions going to be rectified?

I ain't buying one till it's sorted :-(

@Colin Millar

"Fastest production car round the Nurburgring - Dodge Viper"

The only reason that thing goes so fast is it has an engine out of an 18 Wheeler!

It probably cost the GDP of a small African country to get round it too.

The Land Speed record is currently held by a British built car, British Driver, British Designer. (Thrust SSC) It does over 700MPH. Doesn't make it a good car to own though does it?

Raw Power (Which is all US Cars are good for) does not a good car make.

And if We're going for random no-substance facts: the Dodge Viper is number 69th on the Top Gear Lap times (Granted in wet conditions), in fact the fasted US car is the Ford GT, in 17th. Of the Top 16, 3 Are British, 1 Japanese, the rest are Euros.

It isn't meant for us! (Neither are Ferrari's)

I agree that most american built cars handle like a wollowing hippo, but this has been designed by Europeans.

The only American thing about the car is that it was built there - Henrik Fisker is Danish and Bernhard Koehler is German. Fisker also was chief designer on the Aston Martin DB9 (British / German), and I challenge anyone to say that that handles badly or looks bad - also no-one complains about that costing so much.

The Karma isn't supposed to be for the average Joe, it's supposed to be an electric supercar, hence the price. (And putting aside the top speed of 125MPH, it is for all intents and purposes a supercar) The Tesla is also outside of the vast majority of peoples price ranges, but at least the Karma has 4 seats, a boot, and CAN run on fossil fuel if you want to go further than 200-odd miles without a 6-hour stop to recharge batteries.

And guess what, those celebrities that used to buy huge gas guzzling Ford / Dodge tanks or Euro Supercars, and switched to Toyota Pious's for the green creds are going to be all over these things, so there will be no shortage of customers throwing their money at Fisker so he can come up with something that I can afford in a few years.

These vehicles are intended to prove a technology is viable, and to generate the company money so that they can develop the technology for the mass market. Fisker and Tesla have both stated that they plan to mass-produce vehicles for regular people, but they can hardly do that without cash flow can they?

I, along with 98% of the population will probably never earn enough money to be able to afford to spend £65k on a Karma. I also won't be able to buy a new Ferrari, Lambo or Aston Martin, but I still get excited about new technology that comes about on them because I know that eventually the technology will trickle down to regular cars.

Remember 10-15 Years ago, when Disk Brakes and ABS were only fitted to high end cars? Well now they are pretty much standard fit on everything.

Give it 5 years and we should start to see similar viable tech that we can ALL afford.

@ Andrew Norton & Jim Murphy

You're totally missing the point. You can't remove the electric parts... It IS an electric vehicle.

The Petrol engine is decoupled from the drive train completely - it just charges the battery (Or in those rare situations where you need to go faster than 95 - Provide a boost)

And seriously, unless you drive a lot on the Autobahns in Germany, want to take it to a track, or just drive like a tw@t, you've no need to go above 95 except in very rare overtaking circumstances.

In reality you could remove the petrol generator and replace it with a diesel one - much more efficient.

You could even completely remove the fossil fuel engine and replace with more batteries, or a hydrogen fuel cell, or ultracapacitors or whatever new technology comes along for the generation / storage of electricity in vehicles.

This is an extremely important step in the move away from fossil fuels. When Fisker start manufacturing more affordable vehicles based upon the quantum drive train I'll be all over them - my commute every day is < 25Miles, and as I'll be charging the sucker off a wind turbine in the garden, the only time I'll be using fossil fuels will be 5-10 times a year when I go on a longer journey. Bargain.

@David Kelly

'Tin Cans'?

Typical blinkered Yankie BS (Apologies to the few sensible, informed Americans on here). Your Country is 100% controlled by the oil companies and the media (which is owned by the oil companies - and the Bush Family) So you've not got a clue about the rest of the world. "America Rules", "Everything American is great", "Diesels are Dirty", "all evil people speak with forced posh English accents" (Thanks Hollywood - Wankers)

I've been to the US on a couple of occasions, hired a number of vehicles, and hated every one of them. On a business trip to Florida I hired a "Compact" (hah!) Crysler. (Can't remember the model, but it was a 2 door, with a 2.6L petrol/gas engine).

Outside the thing was bigger than a 5 door Focus(Considered a Family-sized car outside of North America), but inside was TINY. There was no leg room (I'm 6'), and the back seat might as well not have been there.

Performance was complete sh1te too. Any Euro / Jap 2.6L Petrol would get 0-60 in < 10Secs and would be able to hit 130MPH easy. This thing was like driving a tractor. The auto box just revved the crap out of the engine all the time and never applied any power.

Similar experience driving a 2.4L Focus while in Canada (US Model obviously) - The Focus' we get in Europe have different engines and gearboxes - thank F***

My old 1.2L Renault Clio would have out accelerated them both.

It's no wonder Americans are all driving around in 8L penis extensions - they think the only way to get any power is with more engine displacement.

To summarise - I'd rather be driving around in my 1.9Turbo Diesel PD Golf "Tin Can", producing <130g/km, 55MPG (45MPG US) than the effing tanks you drive over there.

Rubbish MPG

Are they actually happy with that MPG rating!?

New non-hybrid cars coming out now kick this ugly arsed thing in the teeth.

e.g. The new Mk6 VW Golf Bluemotion gets 74MPG

http://uk-mkivs.net/blogs/uk-mkivs_news/archive/2008/09/09/the-mk6-golf-bluemotion-concept.aspx

Also:

It's got a 77Kw (103BHP) engine (More Powerful than the Honda, and lighter)

It's emissions are below 100g/km meaning it will be road tax exempt in the UK!! http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/HowToTaxYourVehicle/DG_10012524

Also without all those heavy batteries and that huge ugly chassis it will be a damn sight more fun to drive too.

I'm not saying the new golfs are pretty, but at least I wouldn't be embarrassed to drive one, and I KNOW they're fun to drive

Should be roughly the same price too.

I thought Honda were more forward thinking than this.