Where can I buy solar pannels for my electric/hybrid car?
Question:
I'm seriously thinking about buying an electric vehicle or a used hybrid so I can save up on some money. I'm totally broke and I'm unemployed most of the time. But I have ten or so grand I can spend from credit if I can put it into something as a callateral that I can show to the bank, which an electric or hybrid hevicle is perfect because it barely depreciated or at least depreciates a lot less that ICE cars. Plus me being broke doesn't help at all with the gass prices, I can berely afford to drive at all with a car, but I can have an electric vehicle as long as it has some extra solar pannels and some extra batteries, which is ok for me in terms of finances because they will be covered by the low interest loan, easy money.
Answer:
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The amount of money you have isn't very much - and you might not be able to afford a used hybrid - but I can show you some electric vehicles you can afford.
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First, there's the ZAP car. It costs $10000.
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http://www.zapworld.com//cars/xebra.asp...
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The ZAP is a city car - it won't do freeway speeds. If you need to do freeways, you might want a used or converted gas car - some of these cars can be had for less than $5000:
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http://www.grassrootsev.com/convert.htm...
and
http://www.austinev.org/evtradinpost/...
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These cars use lead-acid batteries - that's the old battery technology, so you will only be able to drive about 50 miles between charges.
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Solar panels cost thousands, but charging from the outlet isn't very expensive. In fact, in my state (Michigan) the electric company has a special rate for electric cars - just 2 and 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour. I drive about 1300 miles per month, and the electricity cost for my EV is only 8 dollars. In most gas cars, the gas for 1300 miles would cost nearly $250.
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If you do this, be sure to join an EV club to learn how to care for your vehicle. EVs are very reliable, and almost never break down. But you have to care for your batteries so they last a long time.
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if you have so many financial ailments then why are u thinking about a car or changing it
You are BROKE, so let's do the math.
Let's say that you buy a gasoline car that gets 30 Miles Per Gallon. Then drive 100,000 miles. That's 3333 gallons of gas. At roughly $3 per gallons, that's going to cost you about $10,000, or $.10 per mile.
A really good hybrid car might get 50 miles per gallon, so over the same distance, you pay only $6,000 in gas.
But when you look at the 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid
Hybrid 4dr Sedan (2.4L 4cyl gas/electric hybrid CVT) it only gets EPA Mileage Estimates: 40 mpg. It costs $25,900 MSRP
Now look at the 2007 Toyota Camry
CE 4dr Sedan (2.4L 4cyl 5A) (non hybrid) It costs $19,320 and gets EPA Mileage Estimates: 24 mpg / 33 mpg.
So you PAY Toyota the $6000 that you might have saved in gasoline.
Now, let's look at some used car.
Let's say that it is 3 years old. Have you ever had a battery that was 3 years old? In a car, in your computer, in a flashlight. HEY, let's assume that the batteries in your USED electric car need replacing. What do you think THAT will cost? (I bet they aren't cheap, and I bet the cost is MORE than the GAS would cost if you just got a cheap old gasoline powered car.
So if you are BROKE, trying to save money with an electric or hybrid car is downright SILLY.
Unfortunately Danuitti has it right. The math doesn't lie and at present a hybrid is just not that good a personal financial investment. It costs thousands to replace the batteries in a hybrid after it ages only a few years. Also, the amount of power generated by any reasonably sized solar array is very small compared to what an EV would consume in a typical driving situation. Don't give up though because the technology is constantly improving and will be practical before very long.
By the way, at the present time driving a well-maintained and efficient used car is a very good form of conservation because it actually saves the considerable amount of natural resources that would be consumed to manufacture a new car, not to mention the resources that would be used up in performing the work to pay the interest on the loan. Think about it.
WK
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