Fisker Karma Gets Worse MPG than an SUV
 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenme...ge-than-an-suv

"Congrats to the Fisker Karma, which now joins corn ethanol in the ranks of heavily subsidized supposedly green technologies that are actually worse for the environment than current solutions."

Haha. Stupid government . . . or stupid taxpayer, not sure which.

Sounds familiar, the Volt comes to mind.

electric vehicle makers want to pretend that the electricity to charge the car comes from magic sparkle ponies sprinkling pixie dust rather than burning fossil fuels.

The smart thing would be nuclear. Go ahead and tell a greeny that.

Solar? Kinda cool, but actually ridiculously inefficient.
Wind? Works pretty well. . . . when the wind is blowing. Kills wildlife, sorta noisy, casts shadows.
Geothermal? Pretty effective, but limited access. We could turn the whole caldera around Yellowstone into a bunch of plants, but that's not likely.

Never mind that if electrics were broadly adopted the entire grid would have to be MASSIVELY upgraded for that capacity.

I'll take a car that runs on rainbows and unicorns husks

Nuclear + Diesel/Electric hybrids = win.

Diesel electric is very effecient. In fact, that's what almost all trains really are. I think VW has done some work, but so far the cost would be too high to warrent the difference in mileage still. Diesel is still a few thousand premium over gas engines as far as I know, and in the US diesel fuel costs more than premium. So there are some hurtles.

Nuclear is so obvious I don't even know what to say. But the powers arrayed against it are intense . . . ly stupid. Unfortunately. they're also quite powerful. Hence we have very little in the way of new refineries or nuke plants even on the boards. :suicide:

We had better hope and pray for some miracle technology to come on line, or energy costs are going to fugly in the not so distant future.

Remember diesel didnt use to cost more, it was actually about $0.75 a gallon before common rail diesel vehicles became popular, but the government couldnt have people making more horsepower and torque, getting better mileage and have more reliable and longer lasting vehicles without getting their hands into it. Currently about 80% of diesel cost is tax and markup, for what it takes to make 1 gallon of gasoline there is 20 gallons of diesel made as a bi-product. This isnt something thats avoided, it all happens during the refining process, so simply, diesel is all profit.

Look at red diesel (untaxable, non road use) sells for around $0.80-$1.00 a gallon, crooks, i tell you, all of them

Thats true but it does help that is all done in one place and at a larger scale so it's better in the long run.

The thermodynamic efficiency of modern plants is much higher than a car engine, that's for sure. But there are distribution losses over distances. The main point is that electricity doesn't grow on trees and I do think a lot of people somehow don't quite realize that electrical power is NOT a natural resource. It has to be created.