[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'T')he batteries are the budget-buster for EV conversions. Nobody wants to drive a lead sled. Lithium doesn't come cheap.

[patience]

A small, lightweight EV is quite practical with present technology. but the expectations of the average potential buyer of same are not practical at all. Detroit and others are caught in that dilemna, trying to achieve the impossible, that is, to create an EV that perfectly supplants present day cars. Can't be done now. We could compromise on cost, range, weight, luxury, performance, size, etc., but compromise is not in the spoiled public's vocabulary.

Until the general public gets the real picture, the WHOLE picture, I don't see the EV hitting mainstream. So, as usual, we will have garage tinkerers like myself leading the way, if/when EVs make any impression. All manufacturers can do is mass produce what is demanded on a scale large enough to cost-justify tooling up. The car companies are all hurting for money now, so they don't have cash to throw at a non-starter like EVs for the general public.

Maybe Government Motors will decree EVs for everyone, and sink a boatload of my great grandkids cash into this?

[Dreamtwister]

Cars are still manufactured in Detroit?

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('patience', 'A') small, lightweight EV is quite practical with present technology. but the expectations of the average potential buyer of same are not practical at all. Detroit and others are caught in that dilemna, trying to achieve the impossible, that is, to create an EV that perfectly supplants present day cars. Can't be done now. We could compromise on cost, range, weight, luxury, performance, size, etc., but compromise is not in the spoiled public's vocabulary.

[mos6507]

Toecutter, you've got to stop looking at aerodynamics as a panacea every time the EV debate comes up. The Cd of a prius or next-gen insight is nothing to be ashamed of. The Precept, Loremo, 1970s Citroens, Aptera, First-gen Insight, EV1, they all have some combination of long fishtail fastbacks, only 2-seat capacity, or fender skirts. Aerodynamics at that level starts to really impact aesthetics and alienate customers. Maybe taste will take a backseat to economy when gas is 2-3X what it is today and companies like Aptera will reap the rewards, but vehicles like the first gen Insight tanked in the marketplace due to factors like these. Not only that, but in stop and go driving or low speed driving, aerodynamics doesn't do squat. Batteries are the key to EVs more than aerodynamics. Look at the range of the Tesla which doesn't even have that great aerodynamics, or the Rav4EV that ran on now old-tech NiMH. If we actually get batteries to come down in price or up the energy capacity then aerodynamics is no longer make or break.

[patience]

GM hasn't been unduly influenced by engineering at least since the mid 1970's, that I personally experienced. The Board is made up of all money people, and it is a top-down organization. If an employee does not think so, they will be quickly enlightened. Read John DeLorean's old book, "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, for insight into how and when the accountants took over the boardroom from the car people. Been going downhill since then, but as I posted elsewhere, it took them about 30 years to squander all the money they had and all they could borrow. No sympathy for them on my part.

Yeah, planned obsolescence is the business model, along with selling all the BS accessories that the market will bear, and do it by attacking the self esteem of the customer, like they do with toothpaste and other toiletries, clothes, on and on. See Vance Packard's old book, "The Status Seekers", about marketing to blue collar people.

Personally, I want to drive something that has better survivability than a "Smartcar", and don't relish the idea of being in a crash with several gallons of sulfuric acid, either. I'll take my bike, before that, the least crashworthy of all.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', 'D')etroit could only save itself if they can make a fuel efficient auto's or electric cars that don't cost $50,000+.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', 'I')t seems to me the Volt is part of a greenwashing campaign to take critiscism off of GM. The engineers were given such narrow constraints to design the car with(netting a drag coefficient similar to a Prius, which is about matched by a 1921 Rumpler...). Cars are supposed to be designed by the engineers, not the accountants and PR groupies, and even after its death, GM still hasn't learned this.

[mattduke]

Detroit is gone. Federal Reserve inflation destroyed it. link

[Troyboy1208]

wow thats incredible. Houses are worth less than cars!

[Jotapay]

They have been destroyed by vandalism in most cases, I imagine. The homes that are inhabited have shells next to them, which depresses prices of habitable homes.

[Escapist]

I think the material of making the houses costs more then 6000$

[jasonraymondson]

craigslist ads for detroit are still pretty well up there

http://detroit.craigslist.org/rea/

5 bath here for under 6000.00
http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/Detroit, ... _sort/7_p/
The funny thing, why the hell does it have 5 bathrooms when it has zero bedrooms?

Here is a nice little home for 12,500
http://www.trulia.com/property/10323765 ... t-MI-48235


Here is a street view of some of these great 6000 dollar homes
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 19.93,,0,5

[jasonraymondson]

Wow look at this ad

http://detroit.craigslist.org/reo/1223223406.html

Here is a beauty for around $2000.00
http://detroit.craigslist.org/reo/1223206729.html

[Ache]

NYTimes
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne night a little over a year ago, crossing Woodward Avenue, I crashed my bicycle. As I flew head over heels across Detroit’s main boulevard, I thought, well, in any other town, I’d be hitting a car right about now. But this being the Motor City, the street was deserted, completely motor-free.

While bike enthusiasts in most urban areas continue to have to fight for their place on the streets, Detroit has the potential to become a new bicycle utopia. It’s a town just waiting to be taken. With well less than half its peak population, and free of anything resembling a hill, the city and its miles and miles of streets lie open and empty, beckoning. And lately, whether it’s because of the economy or the price of gas or just because it’s a nice thing to do, there are a lot more bikers out riding.

[perdition79]

Detroit is perfect for bicycles, now that it's completely devoid of commerce and population. lol.

[Graeme]

Stirling engine solar dish farms also seek to restart Detroit

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he solar power industry could help put Detroit back to work, according to Sandia National Laboratories and their commercial collaborators who plan to break ground next year on the first commercial Stirling engine-based solar energy collectors. The automotive supply chain can be used to make the collectors.

"Our engines and mirrors are being manufactured and assembled in the United States by what is essentially the existing automotive supply chain," said Sean Gallagher, a vice president at Tessera Solar and Stirling Energy Systems. "This is something that Detroit knows how to do very well. When we get into volume production, this emerging industry will be put our automobile workers back to work."

Tessera Solar (Houston) is constructing two pilot solar dish farms using collectors manufactured by Stirling Energy Systems (SES, Scottsdale, Calif.). The first is a 1,600-megawatt facility for the San Diego California Gas and Electric Utility scheduled to go online in 2010. The second is a Southern California Edison project for a 1,000-megawatt facility in the Mojave Desert to be launched in 2012.

[FireJack]

Its a great idea, only it's somehting that should have been started like 15 years ago. The future is not one where we use a lot less energy, not the same or more from alternative sources.

I think inventions like this will probably provide some energy to places but it will be very localized whereas the majority of places will do without.

[deMolay]

http://almartinraw.com/public/column417.html

[Novus]

Looks like Detroit took a turn for the worse after GM and Chrysler went bankrupt. No water, or electricity, entire blocks bulldozed, barbwire roadblocks, private military, and mini dictatorships. Sounds like the Gaza strip in Palestine. How long before the people decide life is not worth living and take take up suicide bombing like they did in Gaza.