Michigan builds Green Zone Solar Canopy, charges your electric car

[dawp]

lol 4 hours.

Gas car from Miami to NYC - 22 hrs

Electric car same trip - 60 hrs

Uh, lol

most electric cars will be used for commuting, if you need to go farther, there are such things as train and planes.

 

[werepossum]

Plug in Prius comes out in 2012 or end of this year. Its range is less than the Volt but it should be much, much cheaper, and far superior when running on gas. I think it will put the final nail in the coffin of those who defend the Volt over the Prius, they'll more or less be caught with their pants down and no way to pretend otherwise.

Sounds cool.

The irony is that GM did a pretty darned good first gen electric car in the 80s. There is no excuse for them to put out such a POS hybrid in 2011.

 

[Zargon]

Eventually that's probably true but not any time soon.In its current incarnation I agree. It's also selling like crap, either people don't want them or they aren't making them (GM), but on wikipedia you can see their sales and they're abysmal. Also, if you start a trip with a fully charged Volt and a trip with a Prius at about 60 miles you hit break-even point for fuel cost (at current gas prices) with any subsequent miles being cheaper on the Prius. The Prius is a far better car now, with a mature and proven and quite inexpensive technology. The Volt may get better but it's also possible it will be put to sleep before it has a chance to ever become relevant. Tt's too damn expensive, its range sucks too much, and it guzzles gas when past its charge.

they are pretty well sold out from what I read a few months ago, they just arent making that many of them. their goal is 10000 units, they have sold just over 20% of that number. they also said deliveries of demo's and non-pre-sold units will pick up during may which they think will cause an upturn in sales as people can actually test drive one and see it on the lot

 

[p0nd]

They need standardized hot swappables like with a fork lift and you rent the battery per "fill up". Electro chemistry and battery membranes makes it impossible to fill up quick.

Yup, this model makes a lot of sense because the already existing infrastructure - gas stations - can easily be retrofitted to also include battery exchange, rather than building new charging hotspots etc. Stop in, swap your old battery for a fresh one, they charge your old battery and it gets picked up by someone else.

 

[piasabird]

You can only charge a car so fast. Even if you could charge in 5 minutes with some kind of super batteries, there is no circuit capable of dilivering that much energy that fast.

The world might be better off with an electric bicycle. The problem is that with current laws, they are limited to about 12 miles per hour limit, even though they could easily go over 40 Mph.

Depends if you want to brake the existing laws or not.

http://www.falconev.com/The-bikes.html

40 MPH Offroad Mountain Bike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whJY3RfGFs4&playnext=1&list=PLDC4DD393B932B8FA

 

[PeshakJang]

Yup, this model makes a lot of sense because the already existing infrastructure - gas stations - can easily be retrofitted to also include battery exchange, rather than building new charging hotspots etc. Stop in, swap your old battery for a fresh one, they charge your old battery and it gets picked up by someone else.

So every electric car produced or sold in the US would have to adopt one battery standard and design their piece of shit car around that?

Oh, no, I get it... GM will develop the standard, along with GE, and since they have the benefit of basically and endless government checkbook to draw from, there will be no competition.

Win for the consumer!