I was reading about this company called Better Place the other day. Basically their idea is to install a network for electric cars that includes battery charging stations and battery switching stations. The charging stations, powered by wind, would be installed in your home and in parking spaces all over the place. The switching stations would probably be at regular petrol stations so you can just drive through and your empty or half-empty battery gets taken out then replaced with a new one. They also own the battery and the amount you pay for it depends on how much you drive, like a mobile phone plan. I think the biggest problems people would have with this is that you don't own the battery and you can't just charge it from a regular power outlet but have to use their charger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Plac e http://betterplace.com Can this work?
it is possible if they standardize the batteries. then the stations would be just changing batteries. the way oil is burning up we could be going to this, viably
I was talking to someone in the pub the other day who had invested in one of this little electric cars. I wish i had a picture of his face when i told him our electricity is generated in coal fuelled power stations. Sure, the actual car doesn't produce any emissions but the production of the electricity on which they run produces a lot. Until we can produce clean electricity (100% nuclear) these cars are nothing but a way of hiding the problem, not solving it. if they want to help they should invest in hydrogen fuelling stations.
I think it can work. I wonder what the costs are of maintaining the battery versus buying gasoline. Probably much less...
bike, start with bike. in here we have bike2work community that people use bike to go to work instead of driving a car or take a bus. it's not much, but a start. we even plan to propose a special track for bikes. or maybe camel2work, horse2work, donkey2work, that another alternative.
They already have big investments, are getting a car made by Renault and have showed their technology off around the place, there are videos on youtube and articles on the net. I doubt they are just lying about it..
What they actually said is "over time" they plan to "increasingly" use sustainable electricity. They have also said that they are relying on electricity produced by utilities companies, which at the moment provide very dirty electricity. Just because the car doesn't have black smoke coming out the back it doesn't mean it's "green", don't be fooled by the lack of smoke and mirrors.