Electric Vehicle Musings

Chrysler joined GM this week, by announcing a group of Electric Vehicles (EV) they hope to have in production in 2010. While I still wonder if this is too little, too late, for the North American manufacturers, I’m glad they are at least making an effort.

My first choice in EV is still the full electric, plug-in model. Yes, I’ll rent an range extended electric vehicle (REEV) on the rare (once per year) occasion that I need to travel beyond the range of my future all electric model. Chrysler claims their future sports car, which can travel at speeds up to 120+ mph and will go between 150-200 miles per charge. The ZAP-X EV, announced over a year ago, claims a top speed of 155 mph and a range of 350 miles between charges. By the way, their combination of lithium-ion batteries and “supercapacitor” technology, claims that a recharge can take as little as 10 minutes. While we haven’t seen much of the ZAP-X EV, they have managed to get some of their technology working in the Tesla Roadster.

Toyota, no flash in the pan company, is also working on “supercapacity” technology as well as a company called EESTOR, thus we may actually see this stuff on the road in the future.

Hopefully, North American vehicle owners will jump on this technology once it’s available in large quantities. And with a large supply of mobile batteries spread evenly across the country, wouldn’t it be great if the electrical grid could take advantage of this resource! I hear rumors, that Google is working on a system that would allow EV owners to plug their vehicles in at night – charge their batteries with cheap electrical power… then drive to work the next day and plug their vehicles into the grid (at work). Once plugged into the grid, Google would be able to access this vast network of stored electricity and “bring the batteries online” during peak power usage. Google would regulate the total power taken from your vehicle’s battery, based on parameters that you set. Thus you would always have enough power to drive home from work. The good news, you get paid more per kilowatt hour for the power you put back on the grid in peak demand, than it cost you to charge at night. You could end up driving for FREE!

Electric Vehicles could really make a big impact if we all jump on board.

 

 

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