Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:53:27 +0100, djc wrote:

But these electric cars aren't designed for driving across europe or
any great distance. They are for the wage slaves doing the M-F 9-5
25 mile round trip commute.

But the wage slaves are just the people who can only afford one car,
so it has to do all the other occasional, but so often vital, trips
too.

So they use some of the money they save from the cheap energy, reduced
tax, etc on the day to day electric car to hire a more suitable
vehicle as required.

Figures were posted recently about how much one of these cars would
save someone communing into central London with, no congestion
charge, free parking and charging etc. I forget the numbers but it
was several thousand pounds...

Cars these day cars just do not need an engine of a large capacity. Four
or three cylinder engines are all they need. The days of direct drive by IC
engines are nearly over - we are at the beginning of the end. Look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_...tro-air_hybrid

Using petro/hydraulic hybrids which is very promising:
http://www.artemisip.com/appli_auto_transm.htm

Overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbilBl3GGo

More detail of the BMW car's testing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJw5AvvxBqg

http://green.autoblog.com/2006/06/15...of-hydraulics/

INGOCAR from Valentin Tech shatters the way we think about cars:
http://www.torquenews.com/1080/ingoc...ink-about-cars

130 MPG INGOCAR (the hydraulic accumulator is the structure of the car):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzabH-rBPqI