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You should have played Neil Diamond's "Coming to America" when you talked about the Th!nk plans to open a factory here. :-)
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Rick,
I am a big fan of E-REV technology, but I am not sure about the comparison you made between the Volt (E-REV) and Tesla (EV) charging times. Your claim is that it will take too long to charge up the Tesla, but your basis for comparison is not the one I would use.
Let's try this. Let's assume both the Tesla and the Chevy Volt take 0.2KWH/mile. Furthermore, let's assume that Bo commutes 40 miles on Monday in his Chevy Volt. So the energy used is 8KWH and the charge time on a 120V/15Amp outlet is 4.4 hours.
On Tuesday, Bo commutes 40 miles in his Tesla. He will again use 8KWH and the charging time is still 4.4 hours.
So E-REV and EV charging time are the same.
It is true that if we want to drive the Tesla 200 miles on 2 consecutive days, charging might be a problem. But for most commuting, E-REV and EV should have the same charge time.
LaterJohn C. Briggs
P.S. You can only put 8KWH into the Chevy Volt's 16KWH battery pack because it is only used from 30% to 80% SOC.
P.S.S. It is good to be Bo.
Nice article on the Mini-Cooper E
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2009/gb20090312_763596.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_global+business
Jesus Battery. LOL. Lazurus battery would be a better name since it can be brought back from the dead with a quick zap.
I think the Th!nk news is a big deal. I think it will be awesome to get that nice Th!nk car and the EV jobs here in the USA. I think they really need to make the Th!nk Open model (the convertible) since that will be a hit here in Kalifornia. Have I used 'think' enough?
Thanks for being skeptical on that potential scam. This industry is way too full of scam artists and it is really nice to see people being skeptical and calling out the hucksters.
Oh, and take it easy on NEVs. Yes, they are not for everyone but they serve a very useful niche and they are inexpensive. And if more states adopt medium speed vehicle (up to 35mph) laws, they will be quite useful. When driving around in town one rarely goes more than 30mph . . . at least not legally. But I do agree that people need to refer to them as NEVs which are just a subset of electric cars and that there are (or will be) many electric cars that can do freeway speeds. (I think 45mph is probably too fast though for these vehicles w/o doors, airbags, crash tests, etc.)
The battery in the MIT experiment was re-charged in about 20 seconds. The experiment used a "tiny" battery that would normally re-charge in about 6 minutes. A car battery, due to much larger size, would still take about 10 minutes, not the seconds you were saying. But ten minutes is a huge breakthrough and still roughly comparable to filling a tank of gas, especially if you have to go inside for a cup of coffee. Perfectly acceptable. But not seconds.