On 22/04/2011 18:06, DA wrote:
responding to
http://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy/...la-701863-.htm
DA wrote:
Huge wrote:

Even if there were charging stations every 50 yards, the technology is
insufficiently mature. Or, in more, er, aggressive terms, it sucks.

The only way any technology improves is through use. No use = sucky
technology.
But charging is only a part of it. Little noise,

Making them much more dangerous to pedestrians.

high torque,

Do I need more than 500 Nm?

lower fuel
(energy) cost, and little to no maintenance of the electrical vehicle are
all playing role.

Basically, the entire article is about how stopping for charging slows you
down. This concept sounds like a no-brainer to me. Of course you have to
plan your route if your range is limited for one reason or another. As one
commenter pointed out, you would not cross Pacific Ocean (8 255nm shortest
trip) in an A320 (3,300 nm average range), you have to plan your route and
stop for refueling twice.

We\'ve been conditioned to expect that a car can take us 500 km away

More like 1500km with mine.

at
any moment we wished. That hasn\'t always been the case and that\'s going
away now. If for no other reason, you at least have to stop and think
about paying for all the gas that you\'ll use on the trip.

The furthest I went along that route was trading in a 19mpg 5 litre V8
petrol motor for a 2.2 litre diesel that does about twice that. The cost
was less of a consideration than having to stop to refuel more than once
a day on a long trip.

Thinking a
little ahead and considering if your car has enough charge for the trip
also seems like a reasonable thing to ask of the driver.

Think ahead and deciding that electric vehicle technology still has too
far to go to make them useful for anything other than a shopping
runabout is more to the point.

You don\'t really need charging stations every 50 yards. But for most
trips one at home and one at the destination point (and a few along the
route for just in case) would make the trip a lot easier. So, yeah, we do
lack charging stations, most especially high power fast charging ones. And
no one argues that a new, faster charging type of batteries is not needed.
It\'s just that they won\'t be developed if there is no demand, and EVs
create the demand.

That, of course, presupposes that it is even possible to develop a
battery that can be recharged in anything like the time it takes to fill
a car with liquid fuel.

Colin Bignell