Who killed the electric car?

Originally Posted by Prosthetic

There's not many legitimate reasons for owning an SUV. As a matter of fact, I can think of none.

What about large families with say... 4 or 5 children? There aren't many sedans that can accomodate a large family. Then of course you could argue that they should drive minivans instead. Consider, however, families who live in rural areas that have dirt roads that turn to mud in the rain, or perhaps they live in an area where they could easily be snowed in? 4wd on a SUV could definitely come in handy.

I don't understand exactly why SUVs are demonized as much as they are. Sports cars with large engines and big trucks are just as bad on fuel economy. Most SUVs are nothing more than trucks with extra seats instead of a pickup bed.

Does anybody know about the self sustaining fusion reactor that they're supposedly constructing in France. I remember reading something about it recently. (I just hope that Doc Ock isn't on the project. ) It might be possible to use such a reactor to generate enough electricity to increase the efficiency of water electrolysis. (This of course is much easier said than done.) Through this process we could, in turn, extract pure hydrogen from ocean water. The current process for producing pure hydrogen results in more pollution and is more costly than the burning of fossil fuels. Hydrogen powered internal combustion engines aren't anything new... the first one was developed in 1807. A great benefit to an internal combustion engine that runs on hydrogen is that the direct by-product is pure water. In addition to this, hydrogen combustion is much more energetic than traditional gasoline. Problems with hydrogen powered internal combustion cars arise in the storage of the hydrogen in the fuel tank. If the hydrogen is in the form of a gas, filling the volume of a normal sized fuel tank wouldn't take the vehicle very far. The fuel must be in a liquid form, and therefore must be extremely cold. However, scientists and engineers have been working on finding a way to make hydrogen powered vehicles a reality despite the overwhelming complexities.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think most SUV owners purchase them cause... well, many times a person's choice of vehicle is a reflection of their personality as much as a meeting of their transportation needs. American auto owners are members of a very specific culture. Many people worship their cars, hell, Pixar just made an entire movie about Cars and American car culture.

Also, a few years ago when the SUV craze started to take off, gas was cheap. I remember in about 1998, getting regular unleaded for about .88/gal. When gas was that cheap, people didn't care if their vehicles were fuel efficient. They purchased them for style purposes only. Also at the time... with gas being so inexpensive, what was the point of developing an alternative?

Are they unnecessary? Sure, in most cases. But so is every sports car. In fact, we don't need cars to be of different colors or stylings at all. People rarely only purchase what they need... they purchase what they want.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

We get electricity a number of ways: from dams, windmills, burning of fossil fuels, coal, and natural gas, nuclear reactors. We've pretty much derived a way to convert almost any source of potential energy into electricity.

The next big step would be a self sustaining fusion reactor that would generate an insane amount of heat that could be used by a steam engine to generate electricity; then the electricity used for electrolysis of water, then bam, hydrogen for everybody! Much easier said than done though.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.