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Date:         Mon, 26 May 2008 09:40:30 -0700
Reply-To:     Mark Thoma <mpthoma2003@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mark Thoma <mpthoma2003@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: deisel schmeisel- I go electric (from digest)  Not much van
              content.
Comments: To: dhanson@GORGE.NET
In-Reply-To:  <000d01c8bf4b$e19a5720$4001a8c0@gateway.2wire.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Excellent post Don and the movie was a well done piece as well. But naysayers are a dime a dozen and apparently quite a few of them exist on this list. Point is we should all begin thinking this way, or plan on using our vans as living spaces for our driveways or backyards. By the way I talked with a California firm that sells a solar vehicle conversion 'kit' for a Prius that consists of batteries and a roof top solar panel allows that vehicle to travel 20 miles a day on a sun power alone and the cost is $4,500 ($2,500 after government tax incentive rebate) so why the company Paul works for charges more than twice as much for just a Prius battery pack is beyond me. mark

Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET> wrote: This is an interesting thread. After watching the DVD "Who Killed the Electric Car" recently, I've become even more appalled about how our 'system' works. I know, it's just a movie. Yeah, sure, Michael Moore and all like him are a bunch of commies (or is it Terrorists now) and all these Lefties are full of shite when they make these 'muckraking movies' attacking our sacred national institutions like General Motors and Blackwater... but still.. It seems there actually were, quite recently, electric plug-in cars, many of them, in daily use. It seems that California had the beginnings of the infrastructure in place to plug these vehicles in. It seems that the ( many hundreds of?) people who had them, on a trial basis, really loved em and drove em around cheaply and problem-free until they were "confiscated" by the car company.

This quick and enthusiastic public acceptance and successful trial program obviously scared the crap outta The Auto-Industrial complex (American) and the Big Oil Company Cartel. They panicked and quite awkwardly 'squashed' the whole concept....Literally! They sent out Re-po head hunters and removed the prototypes right from peoples driveways...if the people defied their orders to turn in the cars..(the auto companies let out the prototypes as 'Leased Vehicles'. Some wealthy moviestar types offered 20 times the worth of the vehicles to be allowed to keep them...No Dice! The automakers obviously didn't want this technology in public view.) There were fairly large demonstrations (not given any media coverage, of course) when the last car was driven away to the crusher (out of view, in Palmdale or somewhere)

Then, in a "Rove-ian" bait and switch move, the automakers and the oil companies began pushing this Hydrogen "fuel cell" technology...saying "Electric car's aren't any good, but in 15 years..we can have Fuel Cell technology working". !5 more years of 'status-quo' till they sell us the last drop of petroleum at a huge profit..15 years so they can figure out how to maximize their profits from selling us as yet un-workable technology that doesn't really make sense.

There was also mention of, and interviews with an old odd-ball inventor who patented a better battery, some time ago, and who's patent was bought out by business.. It may be the new lithium Ion technology that is just now emerging after the patent "timed-out".(guessing here)

So, we had the cars ten (+/-) years ago and the public facilities to plug them in (I recall seeing a bank of plugs in California and asking bout them."Electric car plugs- the wave of the future" my pal told me) ...or you could plug in at home. People drove em around happily, until the Profiteers decided they were not going to make enough money, if these cars were widely used. They came and removed the great little working cars, many times in an 'adversarial confrontation' with the un-consenting lease holder, took em all away, trying to keep it secret (with some success) and crushed all but one...which sits in a museum somewhere.

Below is a link to one site that I Googled up. The DVD, I think you can still get that if your are interested (and the Big Boys haven't removed or crushed THAT, too.) Worth a look, to see perhaps what we should be speaking to our government representatives (hee hee) about.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

Don Hanson

PS.. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. If someone says "That's doggie-doo over there". I look. If it smells like ----, and looks like it, then someone rubs my nose in it..I don't need to taste it, too. I'll call it doggie do, even if I'm told, "Wrong, that's really Ice Cream... " I'd rather gather information, then decide for myself. Take a look at the info put forth in Who Killed the Electric Car? See what YOU think..if you have time and inclination.


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