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Recent Comments:
Forbes: Nissan Leaf likely to be a flop {Autoblog Green}
Feb 24th 2010 3:16PM My point was that what you say holds true for those who are knowledgeable about the green policies and accomplishments. However, that does not necessarily hold true for the general public which is who you have to sell if you are to be a success. I am thinking of the problem with the CFL lights. WE are told how to get rid of them and what care needs to be taken with them for safety. How much would you bet that the average person who has them just throws them into the garbage. I would bet that the same holds true for the EV batteries. In order for you to be able to recycle the batteries, then you have to have them turned in so they can be recycled. If that is not done, you lose. Unless you make it very simple for the consumer, you will lose. That was the point I was trying to make.
I was also talking about the manufacturing processes involved in the making of the batteries. How do you deal with the environmental problems at that point. Consider the scale that must be met if the production of EV is to be cost-effective. YOu have to get the volume up to get the prices down to where the average person will see the car as affordable. You also need to make the public aware of how to shop for pre-owned or second hand or used EV and how to make them last. You are not talking about a one time purchase here. You are talking about creating a whole new class of vehicle and to make it viable you have to make it affordable, maintainable, and also make it attractive to be passed on so that the car is not a throwaway product. That takes mass education, advertising, setting up a complete chain of shops to sell, maintain, re-sell and make the cars viable products. Right now they are not so far as the general public is concerned. You can say that the limited range is not a problem for most of the driving but the public likes a big excess so that they know they will not be stuck on the road. The public also has to believe that if they do have a problem then wherever they are someone will be able to fix the problem and do it quickly. Time is a big factor.
Then you have to consider how you are going to create enough grid power to handle all the vehicles you are planning on. When are you going to recharge and how long will it take once all these cars go into production. The general schedule is that you have rush hour in the AM, rush hour in the PM, potential rush hour at lunch time. That leaves the periods between to be used to recharge the batteries. This is also the time during the day when the air conditioning is on or the heat is on, the lights are on in the offices, the computers are in use, etc. You need to fit the recharging into this same time frame. That means there has to be sufficient storage power to handle all this and still have extra just in case. Then what happens if the power is out for a period of time as it was in Kentucky last year following the horrible winter ice storms. Whole sections of the state were without power for a couple of weeks. You can't very well recharge the batteries under those conditions.
The other point then is that while I agree that EV's have a lot of potential there needs to be a major change in power infrastructure to cover all the potential problems with power to spare or they will not be accepted and if they are not accepted, then no matter how good they are and how clean they are, the consumers will not buy them. If you look back a hundred years or so ago there was a reason that gas powered cars won out over steam and EV. There were a lot of all kinds of them at the time. Why would people buy the noisy, sluggish, smoky gas powered cars when they could have had the clean quiet EV or the much faster steam vehicles. THe same situation exists today. To sell the idea you have to make the point. Selling to people who accept the green solutions is not the problem. It is selling to the rest of the population who are used to their gas powered cars that is your problem.
Forbes: Nissan Leaf likely to be a flop {Autoblog Green}
Feb 24th 2010 12:49AM I am more concerned with what you are going to do with the batteries when they wear out and what materials you are going to use to build them. Seems to me that the materials used in the batteries used in EV are made of rather exotic materials that tend to be dangerous to discard. What procedures are going to be in place to take care of this part of the problem. It seems that they are almost as dangerous as nuclear waste and harder to dispose of. Also very expensive to replace as well. That needs to be factored into the running costs of the vehicle and also its affect on the environment. It is not all green to have EV as the primary source of transportation. There is a downside to it as well.
Billy Joe Armstrong In Oakland, Estate of the Day {Luxist}
Oct 6th 2009 3:48PM I agree that this is the home I could see myself living in. So many of these homes are eye-candy but I wouldn't live in them on a bet. This one I could see moving into right away and being very comfortable. Clean and yet not scary. So many are over the top and my friends would be afraid they would mess something up. Not this one.
Frankfurt 2009: Audi e-tron - 4 motors, 1 battery and 3,319 lb-ft of torque! {Autoblog}
Sep 15th 2009 10:07PM If I remember right I think it was the Lozier electric car that had an electric motor at each wheel and that was over 100 years ago.
New York '08 Preview: Ford featuring crash-tested Taurus {Autoblog}
Mar 18th 2008 9:50PM I looked at this and then thought about a Saab 9/3 that a neighbor had a crash in. The Ford looks worse than the Saab that was involved in a real-life crash. The other car that ran into the Saab was totally demolished. The Saab driver drove the Saab home and parked it in his drive, got out of the car and walked into his house.
MacBook Air early review: GAME CHANGING! {The Jason Calacanis Weblog}
Feb 5th 2008 4:14PM I can see where this might be right for you. I do question that you make such a deal of how light it is and then talk about all the accesories you have to carry with you. that sorta negates the lightness aspect of it. Now suppose that you are able to get a movie out of the battery life. You get off the flight or whatever it was and now you need to use the computer. How? You have just used up the battery life with the movie. You now have to charge it and from I have read elsewhere that is about 4 hours and change. You are in a long meeting and you need to be connected with your office. You also are using the computer during the meeting in an area that has wireless. Can you do both? What affect does that have on your battery life.
It seems that if you can restrict yourself to short uses with being plugged in then it might work. For me it just seems like they left out too many things that should be there, especially at their prices, so they could crow about the thinness and the lightness of it and then stuck you with carrying a lot of paraphernalia around with you to make up the difference. Do you really want to go around with all that external stuff to hold the addition USB outlets you need and the dongle for this and the attachment for that and the external drive for something else? That makes you look like the equivalent of the gangsta pimp.
