I know.

Hopefully my text didn't come across as "i'm offended". Honestly, I'm pretty thick skinned.

But I get the "it doesn't fit comment a lot." Trust me, it might hurt a little but it WILL fit. And then it will feel very good.

Is there a Lotus in your future? Here's to hoping that Mark picks up a new Exige 260S in white. I don't know what I would do with another 70hp in the Lotus, but I know it would be stupid fast on the track.

 

There are other Lotus cars that might provide a better fit. The Evora should be here soon. The Tesla is a little more accommodating, and of course there's the Lotus Europa Hybrid thing that Dodge is working on.

 

you know cv and i followed a orange/yellowish tesla yesterday and it looks like half the car of a Lotus. I understand it's just my opinion but it looks plastic and fake.....I hope the guy isn't on this board..I'll feel bad but saw him twice

 

I don't understand the appeal of a souped-up golf cart, regardless of the fact that it's based on a Lotus chassis. I *think* the appeal is that it's "saving the planet", but how does shifting the pollution source to a coal-fired (or natural gas) power station help save the planet ? Cars have extremely stringent rules about how much pollution they can create at the tail pipe, but power-stations have lax rules (has anyone seen a power station with a catalytic converter attached ?).
Carbon fueled power stations account for 41% of CO2 generation in this country -- how does placing more demand on our (nearly broken electricity infrastructure -- remember Enron ?) power system help ? We really want rolling blackouts to occur more frequently ?
Then there's all the inefficiency associated with power loss over transmission.

And what about all the energy and resources used to make insane amounts of batteries -- batteries that we're not really sure how long they'll last in harsh auto-envrionments and whether we'll be able to recycle them or even dispose of them safely.

Unless our energy policy shifts strongly toward building a strong nuclear-power infrastructure, electric vehicles make no sense. Wind/wave/solar with current technology have exorbitant cost-per-MW and such small volume as to be insignificant.

 

^^^^u go paul^^^^^^

I agree. I've heard that the batteries in these things will be around much longer then any other disposed item produced

Same with BioFuel that crazy corn fed diesel takes 1 1/2 gallons of regular diesel to produce 1 gallon of biod....

"Things that make you say Hmmmmm"

 

Brazil has ethanol production using sugar to a point where it is pretty efficient to use as car fuel. But I guess the continental US isn't a good place to grow sugar cane. I remember hearing a scientist at one of the Iowa universities 4 years ago, before the corn ethanol craze, say that if we jumped into this, the result would be higher global food prices, GREATER pollutants due to the processing of corn to ethanol, poorer beef quality as a food source, and the elimination of many national parks (because of the land demand for corn plantings). Some people knew ahead of time this was a bad idea.

 

A random note on biodiesel:

I read an article not long ago in one of my wife's environmental magazines that was against biofuels. The basic premise was that increased demand for the (in this case corn) staple, increased the price globally. This negatively impacts the hungry. The third order effect of that was/is increased violence. When people are hungry, they are decidedly not happy.

A second impact of biofuels was/is the increased demand for farm land. A nice benefit to the farmers is that their land values go up, but not many farmers want to sell their land. The third order effect here is that people clear forested areas to create more farm land. Thus the planet has less capacity to handle CO2 emissions naturally.

I do have a nice article on the tesla well-to-wheel analysis if anyone wants it. PM me your email (unless I have it already) and I can send it along. it is written by tesla, but I found it a good an informative read regardless.

All that said, and as much as I hate to admit it. I think the gasoline motor (unless we adopt the MYT engine) is going the way of the Dodo bird.

 

This is how NOT to get in a Lotus as demonstrated by Larry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWBBN4uzvaQ

 

^^^ you should have greased him up first..

 

haha poor larry. You have to push the seat back everytime you get out to ease insertion . Also you have to get that right leg wayyy in there before you try to get the rest of the body in. Sorry to hear about your pants

 

I looked at the door area and could see that his pants got caught on the door latch. So, it's been established he did not rip his pants because he stretched it to its limit. It was the result of an outside force beyond his control.

 

Well, gotta give them credit for their alternative energy efforts, even if inefficient. Has anyone in this forum contributed to finding or funding alternative sources of energy? I assume most of us don't and drive internal combustion engines or not commute by bus.

I understand these electric cars are skeptical to many, and I think that's the scenario of believing that "God exists" versus "God does not exist." We don't have a breakthrough in technology and developmental process yet to justify those beliefs in the most or least energy efficient resource. People say the development of electrics only transpose emissions to coal power plants, batteries don't hold enough charge (capacitance), developing batteries put too much load on our grids, etc.

The reality is that while power stations contribute to 40%ish of emissions, the average power station is a lot less CO2 intensive than the average internal combustion engine, which probably all of us in this forum are using. Because of the intensiveness of the combustion engines, if we switch to plug-ins and considering the production of these batteries, we still would save millions of metric tons in CO2....and is probably the argument why we have more stringent rules than on coal plants.

There are car companies that produce nice specs, such as the Lighting Car with a battery that lasts 10+ years with recharge time in just minutes, has a maintenance-free motor that generates 700+bhp, gives zero CO2 exhaust rating, and does 0-60 in 4.0 seconds. While I would agree that the overall energy of producing and using those electric cars isn't THAT much better than producing and using our current engines, our problems would be solved if we can produce those electrics on fossil-free generators, OR re-localizing our energy sources (considering transmission losses via imperfect conducting cables and voltage reducing transformers).

I also think we need to focus on better batteries, like 95% recyclable, lithium free silver-zinc batteries or lithium-air batteries (10X more capacitance) AND improving solar/wind resources for the development of these cars/batteries (and of course, no bio-fuels).

 

Option #1: Use Grease:



Option #2: Put the body over Larry.

 

The "correct" and easy way to get is crouch down on your knees and go straight in then rotate your butt and sit down. Then all thats left to do is swing your legs inwards. I was shown this the first day I started at this job (we are a Lotus dealer) and works WONDERS.

 

Groans. Swivel seats would be nice