You may not have heard of Better Place but they want to revolutionize personal
transport through networks of
EV car stations. Their stations
will provide recharging facilities but more importantly a
battery
swap service that customers can sign up for. Better Place think
extensive infrastructure like this will make more people accept
EV
electric cars and reduce our reliance on oil.
One of the biggest problems with EV cars is their relatively low range compared
to traditional vehicles and the length of time it takes to recharge them.
A network of EV electric car battery swapping stations solves this problem.
The process would work as follows. Your EV vehicle reaches a certain level
of battery power (maybe a third remaining) at which point the car's GPS
display shows you where the swapping stations within your range are. You
drive to one of the battery swap stations and up onto a ramp. An automated
battery shuttle robot locates the battery on the underside of your vehicle
and removes it. The depleted battery is returned to a charging bay and the
robot replaces it with the correct type of charged battery for your car.
More
on Better Place EV Car Networks...
Jul 09: McDonalds is experimenting with offering charging while you eat
for your
EV electric car. A branch recently opened in the
U.S. which has facilities for plug-in charging through a ChargePoint station.
The owner of the restaurant is Ric Richards. He wanted to build as eco-friendly
a restaurant as possible and has used green building materials for its construction.
Ric stated, 'McDonalds is enabling a better environment for future generations
by supporting zero emissions transportation infrastructure'.
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on EV recharging...
Sep 09: Nissan have almost finished developing a
small EV car.
They've built an electric prototype of their Tiida model and plan to begin
selling the new car in 2010, at first just in Japan and the United States,
then elsewhere.
Nissan haven't released detailed information about the car, but have said
the new EV car will be powered by an 80kW electric motor, will feature regenerative
braking,
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on the Nissan EV Car...
Oct 09: EV's are currently very expensive and its stopping a lot of potential
customers from buying into the new technology. Hybrids are getting cheaper
all the time but electric vehicles are yet to follow suit. Manufacturers
are not yet able to produce
cheap EV's. Mitsubishi's iMiEV
car went on sale in July this year and the price was a hefty US$50,000,
around twice the cost of a Prius. Other electric car makers are having the
same cost problem. Subaru will release the Stella electric vehicle this
year, but the cost will be a disappointing US$60,000.
The car industry says that EV prices will fall as production steps up. Mitsubishi
say we should see the cost of their electric cars halve when they get some
economy of scale.
Cheap
EV's continued...
EV cars are finding it harder to break through into mainstream
society than hybrids did. Its hard for them to compete with traditional
internal combustion engine cars and hybrids. Electric cars are expensive
largely due to their large hi-tech battery packs, and the problem of range
and recharging is still outstanding. You can drive 600 miles in a traditional
car, stop for fuel which will only take a few minutes and then do it all
over again. The best EV cars have a range somewhere in the region of 150-200
miles and when your batteries are flat it takes hours to charge them, not
minutes.
The problems that I've just outlined with EV cars will definitely be overcome
in the future. Electric vehicle technology is improving rapidly right now.
Batteries are becoming more powerful and cheaper to make. Range will go
up and future fast charging technology will result in recharge times of
just minutes. Alternative solutions like battery swap stations could also
solve the range and recharge issue. But lets assume all of these problems
go away right now and we have an EV car thats the same price and as practical
to own in every way as a traditional gas powered car. Are we ready to quit
the gas guzzlers and make the change to electric?
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on loving EV Cars...
EV cars are really taking off right now. Manufacturers are scrambling to
get new electric models to the market and get a name for themselves in this
new and fast growing category of car.
Electric cars have come a long way in recent years and are now at the point
of offering similar practicality and performance as traditional cars with
the benefit of being far kinder to the environment. Although they're currently
more expensive than most traditional cars we can expect their price to go
down as time goes on. The most expensive component of an EV car is its batteries
and these are both improving in quality and coming down in price simultaneously.
Car makers are currently investing a great deal of time and money in improving
electric vehicle technology and we'll see the benefits of this over the
next few years.
At the EV car website you'll be able to learn all about electric car technology,
read reviews of new cars, and access lots of data and stats on electric
vehicles.
More...