I’m doing a High School Physics project, and I want to know, how do you make a MODEL electric car go in a straight line?

You add photosensors for line tracking or following. Use those terms in a Yahoo! search.

Just looking for ideas on how 1 person can help to bring back the electric car…

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We can have more electric cars - it just takes more people like yourself to take the initiative. We can’t wait for the big car companies to build them - they don’t want to do it. But there are many small entrepreneurs doing it.
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Why don’t people know these cars exist? Because small companies don’t have the ad budgets to get their message out. But if you buy one, and spread the word, more people will buy them - the EVs will get better and better - and the rest will take care of itself.
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Here’s one company making an EV that charges in 10 minutes:
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http://66.218.37.153/index.htm
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Here’s an electric sportscar that can beat a Ferrari in a race:
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http://www.teslamotors.com
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Here’s a Chinese import that gets 200 miles per charge:
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http://milesautomotive.com/products_xs200.html
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Read this page to discover how you can buy an EV conversion for as little as $5000 that does freeway speeds, and saves hundreds in fuel costs every month:
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http://www.squidoo.com/cheap-electric-car/
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Here’s a very cute little car (not fast, though) that only costs $10,000:
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http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188
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Don’t believe the disinfo about electric cars polluting. Electric motors are several times more efficient than gas engines. Power plants burn fuel at much higher efficiency than your gas car does. And distributing electricity by wire is far, far more efficient than trucking fuel around the country.
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All these efficiency improvements mean that the EV can travel farther on less energy. That means much less pollution per mile, no matter what the power plants burn.
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The proof of this is in the fuel costs. An EV can travel for about a penny per mile in electricity. Gas costs nearly ten times that.
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I was wondering if there is such a car available that could reach those speeds and is fully electric and plugs in the outlet… if so, how much does it cost? How much electricity does it require (is your electricity bill going up considerably)?

Yes. The main one is the Tesla Roadster, which is a sports car and costs over $100,000. There are others, such as the Green Vehicles Triac and Aptera 2e which are soon to be released and much less expensive ($20-30,000). There are also electric motorcycles such as the Vectrix ($9,000).

Electric cars cost about 2-3 cents per mile to recharge. In comparison, if gas is $3/gallon and your car gets 30 mpg, it costs 10 cents per mile, or about 4 times as much.

See the link below for more info.

How much money would you pay for an electric car that goes 130mph, has a range of 300 miles, takes 30 minutes to fully charge, costs much less to maintain and repair, and costs 1/5 the price to drive per mile than with a gasoline car. Lets say it was an old ‘93 Honda Civic converted to all electric but it had all the above features. How much US dollars would you pay for it?

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Good question. Today there are entrepreneurs who convert old gas-powered cars to electric for very reasonable prices, often under $10,000. These cars do freeway speeds, handle and look like normal cars, and are very cheap to drive and maintain (much cheaper than buying gasoline.) Here’s a link talking about cheap EVs:
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http://www.squidoo.com/cheap-electric-car/
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However, for the most part, these cars are driven by old battery technology (lead-acid batteries), and for that reason, still have limited driving ranges. Better batteries are available, but not to the hobbyist or small entrepreneur.
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Here’s the state-of-the-art in electric cars:
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http://phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet.html
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The Phoenix electric pickup truck - using new, advanced Altairnano batteries - can:

-Travel up to 250 miles per charge
-Carry 5 passengers plus cargo at 95mph.
-Charges batteries in as little as TEN MINUTES.
-Has batteries that last 250,000 miles (never need replacement.)
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The phoenix sells for around $45,000. The price has to be high, to pay for the necessary development costs of the technology. But someday, when the batteries are freely available for sale, we will have very cheap - and very practical - electric cars. It’s just a matter of time.
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i HAVE AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE LIKE ALL THE CAR COMPANIES, WITH BATTERIES LIKE ALL ELECTRIC VEHICLES, WITH THE SAME SIZE TIRES, THE SAME SIZE, WEIGHT. SAME TIRES, SAME ERGONOMIC DESIGM, same speed(100mph, same 0-60 in 3 sec?: WHERE IS MINE DIFFERENT? wHY?

I think you have already asked this question. See my answer about regenerative braking at: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlARBTbTqvaXdNmtCEro_cd0.Bd.;_ylv=3?qid=20090720201017AAenECp

My daughter wants to drive her little electric car along the beach but I’m worried it’ll just get stuck and bogged down, anyone with any past experience?

it most likely will, why not take her to park, not a play park, but like a walk park, they have lots of paths, would be much easier

In 1996 an all electric car was built by GM by the states that could of solved one of our polution problems, and our dependency on gas. Inside of paying 3-4 dollars of gallon for gas, we would of been paying 60 cents for the electricity. So the question is what happened to this car? where did id disapear to?

One thing nobody mentions when they speak of electric cars is the extra load a few million all-electric or electric/hybrid cars will place on power lines. Even though we have the technology to produce significantly better vehicles, our electric grid is just not up to that reality. In fact the current grid can’t handle the average seasonal load in California and New York - and demand is increasing! I’m sure the car manufacturers know all this and have been discouraged from jumping in with both feet.

Nevertheless, things are changing and we’ve got to come around to this sooner or later. This article is an interesting look:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00003872-159C-1498-959C83414B7F0000

I think the time for the electric car has come. The oil companies and the Bush administration shut it down 10 year ago. With oil at $100 per barrel it may be impossible to stop the electric car. What stocks do I invest in?

BUSINESS SUMMARY
ZAP engages in the development, acquisition, and commercialization of electric vehicles and electric vehicle power systems in the United States. Its products include three-wheeled personal transporters, off road vehicles, and portable energy. The company also produces an electric scooter using parts manufactured by various contractors, as well as rechargeable battery sources using lithium-ion and lithium polymer technology for mobile electronics, such as cellular phones, digital cameras and laptops. It markets various forms of transportation, including alternative energy and fuel efficient automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, personal watercraft, hovercraft, neighborhood electric vehicles, and commercial vehicles. In addition, ZAP rents electric vehicles in tourist locations. It markets and sells its automobile products through its Web site, independent representatives, retail outlets, and automobile dealers. The company was founded in 1994 as ZAP Power Systems. It changed its name to ZAPWORLD.COM in 1999 and to ZAP in 2001. ZAP is headquartered in Santa Rosa, California.

I just watched the documentary "Who Killed The Electric Car"
I was just wonder if anyone has more information on this subject and what are your feelings on the movie. Do you think it is accurate? What groups can I jion to help bring it back? I live in Chicago and this debate was mostly in California. So does anyone know of groups in Illinios?

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Great movie!
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Here’a a site where hundreds of electric vehicle owners show off their cars:
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http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/
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In fact, here’s my EV:
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http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/775
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Check out the links on that site for EV groups all over the country. in particular, the Electric Auto Association has local groups in many places:
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http://www.eaaev.org/
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A few interesting EVs for sale either now or very soon - this one can charge in 10 minutes:
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http://66.218.37.153/index.htm
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This one is a sports car that can beat a Ferrari:
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http://www.teslamotors.com
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Here’s a Chinese import that gets 200 miles per charge:
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http://milesautomotive.com/products_xs200.html
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This one is slow, but cute as hell - and only $10,000:
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http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188
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And this page is all about how an EV can save the average driver lots of money. And also about where to find EV conversions that cost as little as $5000:
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http://www.squidoo.com/cheap-electric-car/
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We are constantly told that the mass produced electric car will soon be with us and many people argue that this means zero pollution.
Clearly these people overlook the fact that as most of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuel we are merely moving the pollution from the actual vehicle to the power station.
Has anybody actually carried out any research into how environmentally friendly electric cars are when all factors are taken into consideration? I do not know the answer but my instant gut reaction is that electric cars are probably worse polluters that petrol or diesel cars; it must be less efficient to convert oil into electricity and send it round the country to charge batteries for cars than simply burning it within the vehicle.

The answer really only depends on the GGE mileage of a given electric vehicle. On average electric plants emit 1.341 lbm CO2/kWh. Since the GGE is 36.3kWh, a GGE of electricity would emit 40.66 lbm CO2. This is in comparison to 19.6 lbm CO2/gal for gasoline. Divide this by the average mileage of the gasoline cars (20.8) and you get 0.94 lbm CO2/mile. Now to do better than this an electric car would need to go more than 43.4 miles on a GGE. Some quick research turned up that most vehicles did do better than this, except the Ford Ranger EV at 39 MPGGE.