Comments DougKorthof has made

  • TOYOTA LIES, TOO

    From the Toyota website: "Although a significant marketing effort was undertaken for the RAV4-EV, we only sold about 300 vehicles a year."

    Toyota never sold the RAV4-EV until Mar., 2002 (prior to that date, it was only offered for fleet lease, never to individuals).  

    Toyota only offered the last few of them for sale long after Chevron bought control of the NiMH patents (from GM) on Oct. 10, 2000, and sued Toyota (2001-2) to stop production of the RAV4-EV.

    So Toyota only had 300 RAV4-EV left!

    There was only the 6 months during which they were offered for sale, THERE WAS NO MAJOR MARKETING EFFORT, and TOYOTA COULD NOT HAVE DELIVERED ANY MORE EVEN IF THEY WANTED TO,  because the RAV4-EV was based on the 1996-1999 RAV4, and it had undergone two design changes since then (2000 and 2001-2002).  The 500 EV-speific parts required to make the RAV4-EV would not fit in the 2003 gas RAV, and so, Toyota only had the 300 to sell!

    When they were snapped up by the end of the summer of 2002 (you didn't know they were for sale, generally, unless you already had an EV1 or HondaEV you were losing), Toyota hastily CANCELLED THE SALE without fanfare by shutting down their website (NO OTHER ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE!).  No warning, and it took them until Sept. 2003 to scrape together the last of what some call the last 28 "frankenstein versions" of the RAV4-EV, seemingly made with spare parts and odds and ends.  We know, we got probably the last one, and it had a (rare for Toyota) defective EV-specific high-voltage air conditioner.

    So to say that they sold "only 300 per year" is a GROSS DECEPTION!  The total sale was only 328, and it was after the batteries were no longer available.  

    To this date, we can't buy the EV-95 batteries in the RAV4-EV, no one can import them, and Chevron won't sell them, not even for replacement on the 328 existing RAV4-EV in the hands of the public.

    It was never offered for sale on the free market, which means, as many as people buy, get delivered; Toyota only had the last 300, and had to dig up old RAV4 bodies even to meet that extra 28 before they could stop the sale, IMO.On Is CARB up to its old tricks? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 17 Responses

  • Solar power for Electric cars

    The problem is, NO ELECTRIC CARS FOR SALE, so it's deceptive and ludicrous for such as Lutz to talk about EVs as if empty promises were real.  GM is promising what it has no intention of delivering.

    If they want to produce an EV, they don't need Lithium "research"; Panasonic EC-EV1265 lead-acid batteries on the 3100-lb. EV1 propelled it up to 110 miles on a charge, and the NiMH used in the 1999 EV1 had an EPA certified 140 mile range.  Used in the non-crushed Toyota RAV4-EV (Toyota sold the last 330 to the public), these NiMH batteries exhibit longer than 100K mile lifespan (maybe longer than 200K) and still give 100 miles on a charge.

    GM IS JUST DOING A PUBLIC RELATIONS DISTRACTION.

    Ironically, the cost of Lithium batteries is about 4 times what the cost of existing NiMH batteries would be; and Lithium doesn't last even 50,000 miles (there is no Lithium car, to my knowledge, that has travelled more than 50K miles without battery degradation; Lithium TALK is good, but SO FAR, NO CAR.).

    UNLESS THERE'S A GOVERNMENT MANDATE, THERE WON'T BE ELECTRIC CARS.

    GM is still suing California to keep our air dirty, and still spending $3B on ads to push gas-guzzlers out the door.  If GM were serious about "going green", it would stop its desperate and expensive fight against higher mpg standards (lobbying weakened mpg standards to allow GM exceptions!).

    And GM is pushing to have its "dual mode" hybrid counted as plug-in cars, even though you can't add to them (it's one complete unit) and the motor is too weak for highway driving.  So even when there's a mandate, there's also

    AUTO AND OIL COMPANY DECEPTION.

    Meanwhile, we drive our oil-free Toyota RAV4-EV every day, powering them with credits from our daytime peak production of electric; slow-charging at night, usually, to help the grid both ways.  Our solar helps avoid brownouts, and our off-peak charging helps run the generators more efficiently.

    All it would take is for California to require GM (and Toyota) to resume construction of, and honorably SELL, these EVs that we drive EVERY DAY.

    If an EV were for sale, it would make solar self-financing: the money you formerly spent on gasoline pays for your solar system in only 3 years.  

    After that, drive FREE OF COST as well as OIL-FREE.
    On Is CARB up to its old tricks? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 17 Responses