How can I stop my dad being an idiot?

[Jaime_Wolf]

Your dad is right.

Hydrogen cars are, at this point, a distant and extremely questionable alternative. Ever notice how just as we finally get a decent handle on one energy source (electric cars), suddenly we can't adopt it because there's going to be something way better in the near future. The end result - we never make any progress because we're always being told that we should wait for the next thing. One wonders if perhaps the fact that we're expecting the people making so much money from oil to tell us all to stop using might be slightly foolish.

The better electric vehicles are very economical and pretty unquestionably better than gasoline in almost every way.

distant? questionable? we I don't know what definitions you go by, but there have been working hydrogen prototypes for years now. nobody wants to put forward the infrastructure for hydrogen when it all comes from coal anyways.

They're working in a very broad sense. They're not remotely economical and hydrogen storage is still extremely difficult compared to batteries or tanks of gasoline. But that's somewhat beside the point. Even if the issue is a lack of infrastructure, you still can't use one right now. It's much better to do something now (and change over if and when it does become economical) than to hold out for a technology that shows no signs of becoming available in the near future while using gasoline. And, given the track record of the organizations involved, I am not at all confident that research into hydrogen won't be abandoned as we approach feasibility for the next much better than hydrogen alternative fuel.

It's like perpetually holding off on buying a new CPU because you know that next year there'll be a better one. Except in this case, the manufacturers are also holding off on producing them becuse next year there'll be a better design.

Edit: I will admit to being rather curious as to why the OP's father needs multiple cars like this though.

if you source your electricity from the grid its all pointless though, you'd be better off with bio-diesel

Actually no. Economies of scale. Power plants burn incredibly more efficiently than cars and there's far less fuel transportation involved. And that's ignoring nuclear power plants, hydroeletric plants, etc.

And bio-diesel actually is almost always pointless (if not actively harmful). The resources required to produce the fuel far outstrip any savings it provides. Bio-diesel exists primarily because it functions as yet another way to provide subsidies to corn growers.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Technically electric cars use no more energy, and produce no more emissions than petrol ones do in the long run.

Just think, a single battery for that thing has probably been around the globe 4 times before it gets put into that car. Because the materials used to make an electric car are so exotic.

hundreds of thousands of miles I'm willing to bet, before your car is even put together... All the emissions, and toxic fumes from making the batteries, and the car itself, and then when it does finally ship to you, on a dirty petrol using lorry, it needs recharging every 4 minutes... So how do we generate the electricity? Oh yeah, through power plants... Need I say more?

I'm not saying petrol cars are good, I mean, I love them, but I can see that we clearly can't sustain them with the resources we have, but petrol is probably more common than disposable electricity right now... It takes a lot more than people realize to get electricity into your home. Probably equal amounts of effort to get petrol there.

 

[Phisi]

Just remember, you get to pick his nursing home XD
hat is really all you can do until he realises what he has done and you can be all like 'I told you so' But electric vehicles are pretty good for city driving where y=it's stop and start and you don't drive so far that they use up their charge. Hydrogen would be another alternative and I agree with you on the better alternative part as we already have infrastructure for it (LPG powered cars exist) and you can fill up instantly instead of waiting for stuff to charge (that said you would be using fuel cells as it is more efficient) but we don't have that yet so I think you're dad may be right but you said that he was buying several of these :O so then yeah I think he might be bit crazy.

 

[Death God]

He's probably going through a mid-life crisis and you probably won't be able to stop him from buying cars. It is just something he's going to have to do for himself.

 

[rabidmidget]

Don't not buy something because a technology "may" be around the corner. Things like new fuel sources can take years to fully implement, even when the technology is there.

 

[warprincenataku]

My dad's always been obsessed with baseball gloves. To this date he has about 500. He keeps thinking they'll have value, but they're only ever going to be as valuable as the price he paid for them on eBay.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Age old wisdom states: Never argue with an idiot, for they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

In all seriousness, move out and get your Mom to separate from him.

If he still has a brain left (seems unlikely) he might notice that he has pushed his family away and change his mind.

I wanted to avoid the obvious pun in the above sentence.

 

[Galletea]

You can't.

Your dad will do as he pleases regardless of what you say or do. If you live with your mother then she should talk to him about it. If not, then you need to work with the other members of your family and make sure you can still pay bills. If it truly is going to bankrupt you, then you need to present him with the evidence.

 

[Stickfigure]

So my dad recently became reeaaalllyyy enthusiastic about electric cars. I always argue with him about how hydrogen will be much better when they develop the technology to cleanly extract it (I still dislike green cars, too boring, but if I had to go with them hydrogen FTW). So anyway he decided to buy an electric car from some company that converts them, which I was against considering it was a $40k converted Hyundai Getz. And then despite everyone else in my family telling him not to, he bought a second POS electric Getz. They're due to arrive in december and since then he's been ringing people up about more converted cars (prius' with better electric motors etc). I understand having to be more green but he's going to bankrupt us, and he just refuses to listen to me anymore because "I don't know anything and am just trying to piss him off."

TL;DR My dad keeps wasting money on buying several electric cars.

Any way to stop this? Thoughts?

EDIT: I know this is bit of a *****-about-my-dad fest but its really pissing me off and I need somewhere to express my anger.

Well, to his credit, maybe he'd prefer a car that exists. I mean, sure, a fusion-powered car would probably be comparably superior, too. But there are no Hydrogen-powered cars available on anything more than a limited release, and they're to lease, not own. Couple that with the notion that it will be years before any kind of fueling infrastructure is in place (and no real agreed-upon system to contain hydrogen fuel), and you're essentially arguing for a pointless vehicle that doesn't exist and may never exist.

Honestly, if you guys do a lot of traveling, it would probably be more advisable to get a plug-in hybrid at the very least. Otherwise, if you're going super-green, electric's an OK way to go (provided you get one with a decent range. Tesla motors seems to be working toward such an end, but it may still be a while off before more affordable models come into circulation). As far as the Getz goes: well, it's a little less safe for the occupants than your average car, and there are superior vehicles available worldwide, but as dated models go it's an OK electric car.

Buying a second car is fairly obnoxiously dim, but otherwise I'm not quite convinced you have thought your complaints through...

 

[FreakSheet]

Your dad is right.

Hydrogen cars are, at this point, a distant and extremely questionable alternative. Ever notice how just as we finally get a decent handle on one energy source (electric cars), suddenly we can't adopt it because there's going to be something way better in the near future. The end result - we never make any progress because we're always being told that we should wait for the next thing. One wonders if perhaps the fact that we're expecting the people making so much money from oil to tell us all to stop using might be slightly foolish.

The better electric vehicles are very economical and pretty unquestionably better than gasoline in almost every way.

distant? questionable? we I don't know what definitions you go by, but there have been working hydrogen prototypes for years now. nobody wants to put forward the infrastructure for hydrogen when it all comes from coal anyways.

Hell, even Mythbusters got a car to work by pumping hydrogen straight into the (carborator?) fuel air mixy thingy, and it worked perfectly.

... That is, until they overdid it and the engine had a bit of an explosion...

 

[gazumped]

I'm all for going green, but whether electric cars are that helpful to the environment or not, buying several cars definitely isn't. Making large machines makes a pretty big carbon footprint, as does transporting them to their places of sale, then they need somewhere to put it once it gets trashed. He can only drive one at a time so buying several is only undoing the good he is/may be doing by going electric, surely.

 

[tharglet]

People, unfortunately, have to make their own mistakes in their lives. Yeah, you can see it's a mistake, but if it's his money, then he can spend/waste it as he likes.

If you are old enough, go make your own money and spend it on what you believe in.