Toyota now crushing EVs too! - GreenHybrid

Schwa · #1 (**permalink**) 08-03-2005, 04:24 PM

Looks like GM isn't the only car manufacturer to crush their ZEVs, now Toyota is refusing to let people buy out the commercial lease in order to crush the RAV-4 EVs.

http://dontcrush.com/

Very interesting interview with an EV-1 engineer: http://dontcrush.com/media/WallyRippelFC.mov

Alex A · #2 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 07:53 AM

Pure electric vehicles have one fatal flaw - if everyone in the US were to use one, we would need 200 new nuclear power plants. After 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl, not to mention piles of Environmental Regs, don't hold your breath for that to happen.

But then again, gas WILL be $10 a gallon soon - stay tuned . . .

kenny · #3 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 08:36 AM

How much pollution is created to produce the electricity that these "non-polluting" EVs use?

texashchman · #4 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 09:48 AM

Kenny another way to think about it is how much pollution is created to produce gas or diesel? Actually Nuclear power is very CLEAN, the main problem is storing the spent fuel. I would rather see nuclear than coal and I can tell you alot about coal power plants.Kevin

Schwa · #5 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 01:36 PM

The good thing about electricity is that you can diversivy the source of energy, unlike gasoline where oil is the only choice, electricity can come from nuclear, coal, natural gas, hydro, wind, solar, biofuels... We aren't trapped on the petroleum treadmill if we use electric vehicles. A lot of the folks that leased the early EVs are hardcore environmentalists and already have big solar arrays on their roof that run their home, charge their car and put power back on the grid, so it's not unreasonable to expect a certain percent of people to do the same and become energy independent.

Not to mention that EVs are 5-10x more efficient in their use of energy than an ICE based vehicle (hence the reason they use electric drivetrains in hybrids).

mehitibel · #6 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 05:22 PM

What means "crush?"

Schwa · #7 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 05:26 PM

These electric cars are crushed:

mehitibel · #8 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 05:31 PM

I don't get it. Why?

Schwa · #9 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 05:37 PM

Quote:

The automakers produced great electric cars to meet California's Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate. A few thousand people have driven the cars. But industry spent millions lobbying in Sacramento, sued in federal court and successfully eviscerated the mandate. Now Toyota, GM, and Honda are confiscating and destroying thousands of electric cars, despite offers of cash from satisfied customers. A small number of ZEV-mandated electric cars were offered for sale in California. They sold out quickly. The automakers won't even sell you the electric cars they've already made. They are crushing them instead. They only sell gas cars.

They have decided (for us) that electric vehicles aren't what we want, so instead of letting us buy them (as we'd happily do) they want to take them off the market until we (once again) force them to make them and sell them, again.

mehitibel · #10 (**permalink**) 08-08-2005, 05:59 PM

What kind of perverse knuckleheads make these kind of decisions? No need to answer. Just rhetorical.