fighting FUD
Dervhied: 530 miles? Neither my Van, nor my wife's car, nor for that matter any car I have ever owned but one, could go more than about 400 miles on a complete fill up. The point is not "can we make it non-stop" but "can we make it in the same time vs. a conventional car, and do so greener, and for similar or less cost"
With Lithium-Titanate batteries, you can recharge in 5-8 minutes to full. About the same amount of time it takes to hook up to a gas pump and fill my van with 19 gallons of fuel. (plus a piss break for the family). These batteries are the same size and just slightly lighter than lithium ion (less than half the size of current hybrid batteries, and are typically mounted under the floor, not in the trunk, so you still have all your cargo space, and the car is balanced very well with the bulk of the weight near the center and close to the ground instead of all in the rear like most hybrids today.
The range of this sportster, on batteries alone, is reportedly 100-200 miles. However, less expensive systems using hybrid gas/electric can go 400+ miles, assuming you sacrifice the 0-60 in 4 seconds or less and high end features of a supercar. The gas engine gets great economy because it has no connection to the drive train. It simply runs at peak efficiency generating additional electricity. It is merely for convenience to keep you from having to fill up, and to make those long hops down lonely cross country roads where gas stations might only be 200+ miles apart (upper Canada, Midwest USA, etc).
With a car like the GM Volt, on short, daily trips (60 miles or less total) you will be able to use ZERO gas. On longer trips, if you can stop frequently, you also use zero gas. If you let the engine run to keep the car going longer and avoid stops, you'll get about 60-80 MPG while the engine is running (depending on other electronics, headlights, DVD, etc in use while driving).
the GM Volt will be available in 2009 now according to recent news from GM, should be about $30,000 (USD), and will go 360 miles AFTER the batteries die completely, on a "less than a 12 gallon tank" Originally, they planned a 600 mile range "after the batteries were empty" based on a 14+ gallon tank, but they recently decided to shrink the tank to reduce vehicle weight figuring more than 10 gallons on one trip would only be needed infrequently and carrying that weight year round would be a waste of efficiency. If they offer choose to offer a Li-titanate battery option as well as Li-Ion, you'll have the option of the 10 minute or less fill up (at 3 stage power locations), 2-3 hour fill-ups if you have a high amp direct line at home, or 8-10 hours on your garage 110volt outlet.
The carbon cost of electricity will be is than half of that used in a gas engine (even better as we expand with more wind, solar, and other 100% carbon free solutions), and the cost per mile on electric will also rival even highly efficient cars (and will remain relatively consistent in price over time on green energy as fuel costs continue to skyrocket)
Sure, the Volt is a bit small for my family, but I'm absolutely certain a crossover SUV will be available a year or two after the volt (it;s already been seen as a prototype), running on a similar platform, and still costing under $30K. GM makes many chassis that could easily be converted to the Volt's power train system, as do other vendors.
electric cars in every garage? Well, in 30-50 years when that's likely we'll have in place a national super grid. It's already under construction, and is not only feasible, but profitable to install when considering how power companies expect to get cheap energy in the future. There's already a section ONLINE in Long Island, so I don't want to hear about how it's "vaporware." The energy costs to keep the lines super cooled with liquid nitrogen to 200+ degrees below zero is less that the average current loss over high power lines in use today, and we can run these lines hundreds of miles (potentially near a thousand) instead of our current limits of about 150, with no generated heat and conduction losses of a fraction of a percent.
Any major store with high voltage parking lot lighting in place could offer fill-ups on 3 phase lines (walmarts, targets, etc). The power cords are NOT "unliftable" as many would lead you to believe. When they claim they are, they're referring to the long distance lines used on poles, which are designed not only to carry the electricity 24/7 without heat build-up, and with as little current loss over extreme distances as possible, but also to carry their OWN weight from pole to pole, over hundreds of foot spans. 3Phase lines of the kind needed for rapid fill up are used in theater stages, industrial lighting, and common commercial building construction today, and when hung properly from a spring assist, could easily be maneuvered into filling position by the elderly. These are also the kind of lines used in high power electric welding equipment as another example. The cords are not that much larger than you'll find on high power, 3 phase, shop equipment, like large band saws, or metal benders, equipment you'll find in any common high school shop.
Instead of gas from oil, we can use WindFuels, aka petroleum made by combining H2 (made using wind energy) with wasted carbon stock from coal plants, and completely eliminate the use of oil from all society. Check out www.dotyenergy.com for more infor on WindFuels!
Do the research and STOP SPREADING FUD!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
