[ausev] EVehicles technology

[m. edmund howse]

Jack,

I actually do blame GM explicitly for the shortcomings of the chevette 
and many of the other issues they've had with a lot of the crap they've 
built over the years. They did of course build some decent vehicles but 
their standards were far below those the Japanese set. The only thing 
good in that vehicle was the Isuzu diesel. I also had an 80 Honda Accord 
that got 35 miles to the gallon and the car was a masterpiece, the only 
issues were regular maintenance so they weren't issues at all. A lot of 
the auto manufacturers today are singing the praises of 35 miles per 
gallon but they were doing it 25 years ago and actually long before 
that. My 58 Caddilac with a V8 got 22 miles per gallon on the highway. I 
agree a lot of things have changed but the one thing that remains the 
same is the American auto industry is blind siding the world with lies, 
deception, and severe capitalistic practices, like planned obsolesence 
and ridiculously expensive after market parts prices.
Which leads me to state that if Americans want change we'll have to take 
matters into our own hands and of course over the years we can see that 
their has been a seeroius migration to Japanese vehicles. This hurt the 
American auto industry severly but instead of addressing the real issues 
of quality and realiability they put their name on Japanese, Korean and 
Chinese made products. Anyway, this could be a long and enduring debate 
but obvioulsy the good news is that the auto industry is catching up 
with the technology but the bad news is it's still the same old players 
with probably the same old attitude.
Back in the early 70's when I was still in the service it was my intent 
to someday have an electric vehicle but nothing materialized from the 
American machine except promises and dead ends, another story in itself, 
so I'm actually converting a Honda Goldwing to electric as well as an 
MR2, VW Beetle, Nissan Stanza and probably my 82 Toyota Landcruiser. The 
biggest problem is I'd like to implement super capacitors into the 
electronics but that would increase the cost by roughly 50-100% since 
I'm using used motors and trying to acquire decent surplus batteries to 
allow me to use something other than SLA. I may have to make my own 
battery packs but I don't see that as a major project just a minor delay.
It's really great to get input this way from those interested in 
alternatives to the standard automobile fare. I've talked to a lot of 
people who won't acknowledge the electric technology because they can't 
believe it will go 200 miles an hour, go from 0-60 in 4 seconds and make 
lots of noise coupled with lots of smoke. Kind of sad. Anyway glad to 
hear from you and have a good day.

marv