USUK Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 This is just deja vu (all over again) and another example of big money manipulating what we do and don't get. For example, In the mid 1900's Los Angeles (the current traffic jam capitol of the world) had a quite efficient light rail (Tram) mass transit system. Then a few investors made significant stock purchases in the transit company and shortly thereafter decided they didn't need a mass transit system and ripped up the tram lines. Wopuld you like to guess who those investors were :-) General Motors, Firestone tires. Standard Oil, and Phillips Petrolium. Hellooo !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llamatron Posted August 17, 2010 Author Share Posted August 17, 2010 Of course they crush cars that cost millions...its just a testbed. Battery life would have been poor and expensive to replace, spare parts would not be available - the cost of maintaining a part number is about £10,000 per part number before you even have any parts. The EV1 had many bespoke parts - they didn't build it from bits out of the global GM parts bin. It was just a way of testing various bits of technology. By the way, if you don't believe me regarding the cars being crushed...I've personally watched hundreds of brand new cars being crushed - the quality wasn't up to standard, and the manufacturere didn't want them in the market as new or second hand vehicles - it would damage the brand. The full value can be written of for tax purposes so no components were taken out - not even the stereo. which just makes it worse. As I said there was a company making better batteries which got bought by the oil companies. The people leasing the cars had them for 3 years and loved them. GM and the other companies were required to create a certain percentage of emission free cars and fought tooth and nail to get rid of the legislation. They had to prove there was no market for the cars so they didn't advertise them. ps the car companies want your car to do a decent number of miles and then fail, they make money by selling parts and new cars. The electric car has very few parts that can fail therefore it will make them less money! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llamatron Posted August 17, 2010 Author Share Posted August 17, 2010 There are many "conspiracy theories" I disagree with but I think its very obvious that the oil companies want oil to be necessary and rare! If they kill off the competition they get both and they make buckets and buckets of money. It all helps if there is an idiot devoid of any moral courage in the white house! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harleyman Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 This is just deja vu (all over again) and another example of big money manipulating what we do and don't get. For example, In the mid 1900's Los Angeles (the current traffic jam capitol of the world) had a quite efficient light rail (Tram) mass transit system. Then a few investors made significant stock purchases in the transit company and shortly thereafter decided they didn't need a mass transit system and ripped up the tram lines. Wopuld you like to guess who those investors were :-) General Motors, Firestone tires. Standard Oil, and Phillips Petrolium. Hellooo !! Those were what were called the Red Cars and ran pretty far out into what were then the small towns in the farm and citrus growing areas around Los Angeles I doubt the Red Cars could have lasted very long anyway as Los Angeles and the surrounding areas experienced a sudden explosion in population growth after WW2 and the rail system and rolling stock had not been designed to handle such a demand that would have been placed upon it. The Red Car terminal in my town was closed down in 1958 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USUK Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 Shame on someone that LA is the 2nd largest city in the US and yet has no mass transit system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harleyman Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 I watched this over the weekend. The car was called the EV1 and it looked great but the company that made them seemed to do all they could to prevent people from buying them.... cut to George Bush (totally unsurprising to someone who watches quite a few american documentaries) The people that had managed to lease them from the company had them taken away and destroyed even though the customers were desperate to buy them. An american scientist had a company making great batteries that could be used in electric cars, an oil company bought it! I despair! Why haven't we got them here? They look great! I saw the Chev EV close up. It had a range when fully charged of around 70 miles and it took a few hours to charge up. It was also somewhat cramped inside and luggage space limited. Jusr because of these factors alone the car was useless in this part of the world The Hybrids however are selling pretty well and for my money the Hybrid is the best bet so far until battery technology can be improved enough to allow short charging times of a few minutes and a range of at least 400 miles between charges which at the moment seems a long way off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harleyman Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 Shame on someone that LA is the 2nd largest city in the US and yet has no mass transit system. You havent been to LA recently USUK I can see that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pidgeon Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 They gotta have something to sell when the oil runs out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USUK Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 You havent been to LA recently USUK I can see that Oh they have one now, my bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harleyman Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 Oh they have one now, my bad. For a start there's the Gold Line which runs from Union Station downtown out to Pasadena. Construction on the extension 30 miles from there east to Ontario has already started and is slated to be finished in 2014 with a further extention from Ontario to San Bernardino or Fontana planned There's the Red LIne that runs from downown Union Station west to North Hollywood It also runs south from Union Station all the way to Long beach There's the Metro Link that runs from somewhere way out in the Inland Empire, through the San Gabriel Valley into downtown Union station and one other line planned to run west to Santa Monica There are also a lot of state of the art passeneger buses now serving both valley areas around Los Angeles People will still always use the freeways though because no matter how extensive the mass transit system may become it will always be impossible to reach some particular points without a car due to the way Los Angeles and the sprawl around it have been built Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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