Dave Plowman wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

That is simply not so.


With 300 mile range and potentially one hour fast charge from flat, it
would be ideal for rural use and commuting.


If you add 'potential' to that I might believe you. Non of the electric or
hybrid vehicles I've read about being tested in real world conditions get
near their claims of range, etc. And a one hour charge rules out lead acid
batteries - so the cost of alternatives is presently prohibitive.


Not so. Things have really moved on in the last year or so. To the point
where there is at least one company brave enough to have built a lithium
polymer powered test car and be offering cell packs for sale. They have
repacakged the biggest they could find with safety circuitry and the
tests they came up with were close enough to my predictions for me to
feel they were not avaiting porcines.

Price is still an issue - the sort of stuff I buy retails at $3 per watt hour, so 50kWh is $150,000

Thst for torch battery sized stuff. That represents a sort of 'it won't
cost more than that' level. A hand built racing engine costs thet much
as well, and no one says that because a Cosworth F1 engine is 100 grand,
thats waht a Ka should cost as well..





What it won't do is 16 hour 1000 mile journeys...


Well, nor will any petrol car I know about without re-fuelling. And anyone
doing such a drive should have a couple of breaks anyway.



No, but the problem is the one hour minimum to completely refill its 'tank'

Here are some links

http://www.sae.org/automag/techbriefs/02-2002/page7.htm
This one is already 9 years old but predicts todays performamnce figures

http://lily.keri.re.kr/battery/wwwbo...ages96/56.html

Heres the record holding electric car for teh Pikes |Peak run

http://www.compactpower.com/pdf/2002...essRelease.pdf

Here is a company that can acatually supply 35kWh batteries for
cars...tho there is a whiff of bovine excrement about his one.
http://www.gatewayreports.com/reports/electrovaya.pdf

heres some data from a 1998 conference that pretty much says the same
thing I have been saying.
http://www.avere.org/evs15/press/evs_2.html

Ah. I found the one site I was looking for

www.acpropulson.com

This is a mean machine.

Enjoy :-)