The future of Caterham Car Company

[Kitcat]

A NYTimes article recently said elec cars = 2.5x more elec demand. No idea where that # came from tho, seems way high. I also saw an article that said Japan was thinking of adding 27 new coal fired furnaces. So much for reducing the carbon footprint. And speaking of nuclear energy, how soon before it gets talked up again in the USA? New, smaller plants,etc.

Our Chevy Volt has 25K all elec miles on it (and 10K gas miles)and its range is only 40 miles summer, 29 winter. It turns out that most of our car use is local. All recharging came from a standard house 120 volt outlet. We are never out of range, thx to the gas engine, that works as a generator to recharge the battery. Sounds like the best of both worlds, but has been cancelled.

It seems hybrid cars just drive some people nuts. When we got our Prius, the pickup crowd acted like we had painted “surrender” on our bumper. Much aggressive driving towards us. But we averaged 50+ mpg, the car was bullet proof, nothing ever broke. It was retired at around 189K miles thanks to a death by a thousand cuts by our two, then teen age, sons. Talk about abuse. If it had been an animal the authorities would have removed it from our home....

[Vovchandr]

A NYTimes article recently said elec cars = 2.5x more elec demand. No idea where that # came from tho, seems way high. I also saw an article that said Japan was thinking of adding 27 new coal fired furnaces. So much for reducing the carbon footprint. And speaking of nuclear energy, how soon before it gets talked up again in the USA? New, smaller plants,etc.

Our Chevy Volt has 25K all elec miles on it (and 10K gas miles)and its range is only 40 miles summer, 29 winter. It turns out that most of our car use is local. All recharging came from a standard house 120 volt outlet. We are never out of range, thx to the gas engine, that works as a generator to recharge the battery. Seems like the best of both worlds, but has been cancelled.

Full disclosure upfront: I'm not a particularly electric supporter. I'll embrace it as the time comes, but I will play devils advocate for now.

Not sure what NYT article you had in mind but I just came across this when looking for it

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/c...ower-grid.html

Generate More Juice

If every American switched over to an electric passenger vehicle, analysts have estimated, the United States could end up using roughly 25 percent more electricity than it does today. To handle that, utilities will likely need to build a lot of new power plants and upgrade their transmission networks.

Not reading the entire article now, but that doesn't seem like an overbearing task especially considering the shift will be very gradual rather than dramatic.

Here is a state by state map projection for potential electric load increase for those curious.

https://theconversation.com/switchin...rything-106227

[feynmanfan]

I just heard a fellow from the Manhattan Institute who presented information to congress last week. His point was the battery mining and production represent a much larger impact on the Earth than fossil fuels. The difference is the US is simply exporting the harmful emissions to other countries, but not to worry, the US can boast greenhttps://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check

[JeffersonRaley]

I love my classic cars and my track/race cars. But I also look forward to having an electric car for my daily driver once they make suitable tow vehicles. And I plan to convert my wife's 1966 Volvo p1800 to electric because it will make the car much more useable and convenient for her. I just don't understand all of the emotion around hybrids and electric cars. On top of all that, the simple fact is that it is much easier and cheaper to control emissions from a few stationary sources than it is from hundreds of millions of mobile sources.

I'm not at all worried about cool cars disappearing. Caterham (and Birkin and Westfield, etc) built their business selling obsolete Lotuses when Lotus can barely stay alive making Lotuses. I'm pretty sure Caterham is unkillable.