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Would you follow up on the MIT announcement of their new Solar discovery and implications for the ev market. I think it means $1 a gallon gas in a year and an ev in every garage in 11 years.
Jim Schultz
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In regards to the Robert Riley site, at: http://www.rqriley.com/
I think you are recalling the projet "Electirc Cars-Now!" started by those crazy Finns- their site (the small part of it that is in English thus far) is:
http://www.sahkoautot.fi/eng
However, they seem more akin to Calcars then the Rqriley Enterprises site in that they are proposing conversions of existing cars as opposed to building a car from scratch. Ther are starting with one car for now, a Toyota, that I think one of the articles says is only available in Europe, not the US- but this may change.
Hi Paul - yes, "Electric Cars - Now!" is indeed the Finlandian outfit we were trying to recall. I agree, Robert Q. Riley Enterprises does appear more similar to Calcars in concept than ECN. I think the point Bo was making is that it would be cool if RQR put in place a system similar to ECN!, whereby you could order all your components for the XR3, find a company to assemble it for you, etc. One stop shopping for the consumer, and makes obtaining the vehicle accessible to folks who have the $$, but don't have the skills and/or machinery to DIY.
Jim, I think the MIT discover doesn't mean anything for EVs or anything else for that matter.
They have discovered a way to more efficiently produce hydrogen. This is good because current hydrogen processes are only 25% efficient due to the need to produce the hydrogen and then convert it back into electricity. Battery technologies are more like 90% effecient. So hydrogen makes no sense at all.
If we assume the MIT process makes the conversion process 50% efficient, it still doesn't make sense. We will still need batteries just for efficiency.
Add to this the problems of storing hydrogen and the enormous cost of fuel cells, and I think the MIT invention may have little practical benefit at this time.
Also, commercializing any product is likely to take 2 years at a minimum from the time they start, and there is no indication that anyone has started to do that.
I have no doubt that the MIT invention is a great breakthrough, it is just that hydrogen has additional problems that will prevent it from being practical.
And, by the way, solar power is very expensive (perhaps 30cent/KWH or more compared to 19 for grid electricity). So I am not sure how reasonable the rest of their story-telling is.
Later
John C. Briggs
I would echo John's thoughts on this- though perhaps in the future it may provide one more option to store solar or wind-genterated energy on a small scale- i.e. the home owner. This is why EESTOR, if they do come thru with a product, is so intriguing- their product would not just be a revolutionary battery for the EV, but a storage unit for renewable energy generation, both on the home level and the utility level- this market may be as large or larger than the EV market for their product.
