Quote:
Originally Posted by Bassnut
Oh Guys, the conspirsey theorys run wild. If electric (in any form) was more profitable, theyd do it, in a flash. The problem is petrol is cheap to get and wildly efficient to transport, store and deliver, nothing comes within a bulls roar of the energy density of petrol. Internal combustion engines are much less efficient than any form of electric power, but the energy delivery system efficiency (batterys, hydrogen, water, whatever) is absolutely buried by petrol. Hybrid is by far the best so far, but still not the ideal. And so long as all the alternative energy scourses create more green house gass than petrol (with coal fired power stations, although once we have thermal, neuclear etc, it all changes), its all a dream.
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It's not conspiracy theories, Fred. It's on public record that Ford and Edison wanted to make electric cars, the lead battery makers did run a cartel that was all for profits and bugger the little bloke, and Standard Oil did "convince" many politicians of the efficacy of internal combustion engines run on petrol when those engines were initially very inefficient and sometimes very dangerous (they had a habit of catching on fire). Some of the politicians who weren't convinced by Standard Oil's practices (who formed a lobby with the battery companies and others), had Standard Oil broken up into 40 or so smaller companies. Those companies are, to name a few, Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, Caltex, part of BP etc. Henry Ford ended up using petrol engines for his cars, the electrics were priced out of business, and the rest, they say, was history. You'd be surprised what the car and oil companies have gotten upto, in order to keep their little business running.
I agree with your summation of electric powered vehicles, however it's not for want of a lack of real funding for research for the last 100 years or so. Why?? As you said, petrol is cheap and there's megabucks to be made out of it's use, or misuse as the case may be.