[sandbyme]

What does the US spend on oil each day?
Next divide that number by the $12,000.

That answer would be the number of electric cars the US could we could buy EACH DAY !!!! for its citizens.

I must be an astounding figure.
Lets paint them all red white and blue.

I just do not have access to the amount the US spends each day on oil.

[BigTex]

I vote for painting them all like the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard.

Might look something like this:



The European version:



The "sport" model:

[kpeavey]

ok, lets go with the plan...
The auto makers will need to retool their factories in order to build the new line of electric cars
While the plants are shut down, we'll need to retrain all the auto plant workers. As the training will not take long, they will have to find a way to pay the bills while the plants are being retooled. The govt can pay them unemployment, but it will be about 2/3 of their regular salary. Hopefully they have their bills in order so they don't lose their homes in the meantime. The govt can afford it, they simply print more money.
As the new electric vehicles come off the line, we can trade them out with gas chugging vehicles. We take the gas chuggers, sell them to the Chinese, this also offers some cash back to defray the cost of the electric vehicles. We do this at the dealerships.
Unemployment will drop as people are hired to build the power plants needed to charge all these electric cars. More people will be hired to work in the coal mines to provide the fuel for the power plants.
The insurance companies will work their actuaries overtime figuring out the rates for the electric cars.
The banks will be able to loan money to far more people as the auto loans will be smaller-12k for electric vs 40k for an SUV. This can only be good.
With the number of cars on the american roads, it may take a while to make the conversion, but probably not more than a few years. So the economy will be strong to be sure.

Of course, with the amount of coal needed to power the number of new power plants, assuming they can be built in a couple of years rather than 10-14, the pollution levels in the atmosphere would actually rise faster than if we stayed with oil. The conversion of coal to electricity, then putting the electricity into a storage battery, then converting the stored battery power into kinetic motion has a few problems with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. With each step is a loss of energy in the form of heat. The amount of coal burned in this equation exceeds the amount in the oil paradigm, and also produces several times the air pollutants. But at least we'll be off the oil. At current rates of consumption we have enough bitumen to last 200 years. However if we increase consumption rates, that time span drops to just a few decades with only a few percent increase in the rate of consumption. The electric freebie plan would raise consumption rates by...an order of magnitude?
As long as the aging power transmission infrastructure can hold on, we'll be able to charge these cars. With the rising price of copper and subsequent theft of power lines becoming a problem, we'll just enact some stronger legislation to prevent people from messing with the grid. If the cars do get produced faster than power generation can come online, we can enact some legislation to limit peoples power consumption at home. Of course, that might work if their power consumption is increasing because they are charging their cars. We'll just let the power companies increase the rates they charge, that should keep things in line. Maybe we could put radio receivers on peoples thermostats, and turn them off during peak use times, like when they get home, plug in the car, turn on the heat or AC.

The plan just has to overcome a few obstacles. Fusion generated electricity is only 50 years away. I'm sure science will think of something.

[kpeavey]

current consumption=20,730,000 bbl/day according to NationMaster

current oil price =$104.95/barrel according to
oil-price.net

doing the math, $2,175,613,500/day, thats 2 billion

divide by 12000 =181301 electric cars/day
assuming all the money goes to electric cars and no money is spent on fuel for the cars currently on the road.

According to answers.com
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
How many cars are there in the US?
In: Cars and Vehicles
Number of Cars in the US

According to the gentleman I spoke with at the U.S. Department of Transpotation Statistical Records Office there are approximately 62 million registered vehicles in the U.S. at the current time and appox. 6.4 million unregistered functioning vechicles. Roughly 32% of those two numbers combined would account for Semi-Trucks, construction, heavy machinery vehicles. Stats accurate as of 02/01/05.

Answer

Roughly, there are about 2 running/working cars per person in the U.S. but as for all non-running and running cars...3 or 4 times the amout of the previously stated.

Answer

There are 143,781,202 cars in the USA more or less obviously

Number of Cars in America

No one knows how many cars there are in America. Many are not registered and are stored, in salvage yards, and some just sitting idle. But, there are approximately 250 million registered vehicles on the road today. That figure includes all types of vehicles.

Approximately 16 million new vehicles are sold annually.

[shakespear1]

Hence we need to give these people an alternate means or moving around. That means mass transit

[Gerben]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shakespear1', 'H')ence we need to give these people an alternate means or moving around. That means mass transit

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerben', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shakespear1', 'H')ence we need to give these people an alternate means or moving around. That means mass transit

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sandbyme', 'L')ets paint them all red white and blue.

[sandbyme]

The economy is barely functioning right now at $105 a barrel.
Our economy will fail at $150-200 a barrel anyway, which we are definitely staring down within 5 to 8 years years if not sooner.

So now add in the amount of money we spend for our military to protect oil supplies.

And we have spent over 80 BILLION in Iraq alone?

DUHHH

[Tyler_JC]

The cost to build brand new factories to replace all of America's existing auto plants and all of the auto plants that supply America with car imports is around $60-$80 billion.

It's not outrageous.

However, that money isn't going to come from consumers spending less money on imported oil. We can't exactly pool together our savings and buy a factory.

The car makers themselves are going to build these plants in order to meet voracious demand for fuel efficient or fully electric cars.

The Chevy Volt, a hybrid plug-in eletric vehicle which won't come out until 2010 already has a waiting list of 10,000+.

[sandbyme]

$80 billion dollars buys 6,666,666 small electric cars @$12,000 a piece.

Even if you only distribute these cars to grannies on welfare and medicaid, imagine the yearly fuel savings for them and the nation.
Then they might be able to afford their medicine.


It is pennies on the dollar in the long run.

Today, book yourself a scenic vacation to Detroit and tell me what you see. The empty auto factories, and car making equipment already exists in Detroit and Ohio. On the first morning you are there, please enjoy the hot coffee being served to you by a former auto plant worker.

Adjust, adapt or collapse.

The sooner we start the change, the sooner we will reap the rewards. Do it now while we have the gas and diesel supplies to build, re-equip, run the factories, get the raw materials to the factory and distribute some form of alternative personal transportation.

If not it will cost us ten times as much a decade down the road.
The cost becomes exponential with time.