Battery technology breakthrough

[White Exec]

Have just caught news of this yesterday.
Could be just the kind of breakthrough the electric vehicle has been looking for...

http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums ... t-20-years
http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/ ... page=0%2C1

A 2-minute recharge to 70% of capacity is actually quicker than filling up with liquid fuel.
If this could be done inductively - while parked, in slow-moving traffic, wherever - with smart meter billing, refuelling stops might be a thing of the past, and vehicle 'range' a bit more academic.

[Dieselman]

That sounds very interesting.

[captainhaddock]

Indeed interesting. I've got the idea those technologies and better ones, are already in invented. Somewhere in a safe with Shell for example??

[russ92xmsed]

That is very exciting and exactly what will make the electric car far more viable. Autocar did an experiment / test recently using a Golf electric car and a Nissan Leaf. It was laughable how long it took to do a straight forward journey. I think the golf did it in 13 hours.

Tesla is such an exciting company, I like the look of the Model S very much. You wonder how they are being so innovative, yet the main car manufacturers are dragging their heals. Self sabotage maybe..... Combustion engine rules.....

[White Exec]

Vested interests. See "Who Killed the Electric Car", and "The Revenge of the Electric Car" for the grizzly story. Both available on YouTube and from Amazon.

Meanwhile, it's going to happen anyway, but not without a fight. Bit like big tobacco... Even some of the big UK car-hire companies are offering things like the Leaf, and Renault's excellent Zoe. And take a look at Renault's Fluence!

[xmexclusive]

The hype over research developments in battery technology is always way over the top.
If it was a real achievable prospect we would see it first in phones and laptops with acceptable battery life.
The major changes have come from consumer products needing less power while the batteries have improved slowly.
I saw a working electric car in the early 1970's in Derby, a converted mini, used for a local commute and charged at work.
Case of an R & D man taking his work home and being plugged in while at work.
The dramatic breakthrough in battery or power source technology was imminent then just as it seems to be now.
In 50 years the range of the electric car has increased somewhere between five and tenfold.
It is mainly the continued availability of oil at an acceptable price that kills battery traction development.

The there is the politics.
In this country this winter we will be on or very close to the limit on electric power generation.
Over if it is cold.
New increased power generation is not going to be on line for 5 to 10 years.
If you plug millions of electric cars in the Chancellor will have to tax the electricity to suppress demand or the lights will go out.

John

[White Exec]

Absolutely right, John.

Failure to manage, failure to plan, all on the back of now private generating companies for the UK, whose principal aim is profit for their shareholders. Bit of a job on, then.

As you say, the shortage is one of generating capacity, not "fuel". Apart from wind, tide, solar and geo-thermal, electriity is not 'dug up', but is simply a means of transmitting other energy from point A to point B.

We will all learn the hard way, I guess.

[russ92xmsed]

Vested interests. See "Who Killed the Electric Car", and "The Revenge of the Electric Car" for the grizzly story. Both available on YouTube and from Amazon.

Meanwhile, it's going to happen anyway, but not without a fight. Bit like big tobacco... Even some of the big UK car-hire companies are offering things like the Leaf, and Renault's excellent Zoe. And take a look at Renault's Fluence!

I have seen these. Made me quite angry actually! For all Renaults work in electric cars, the fluence is non existent hear, and I think I have seen more twizys than Zoe's.

John your very right. If these amazing battery breakthroughs were possible, we would see them in phones and laptops.
We have been dangerously close to blacks outs for a few years now. I have an uncle who works for EDF, and has been warning this would happen for years.

[Ciaran]

On the subject of fuels and politics, I was reading a few things recently about how many European diesel cars with high MPG cannot be sold in the US, it's actually illegal to sell the likes of the VW Jetta in this example in several states due to oil company lobbying.

Ciarán

[xmexclusive]

Look at TFL proposals just published for the ultra low emission zone by 2020.
None of the current Diesels will escape charges but Petrol cars made in the last 10 years will.
It is not just the USA that is worried about the crap from the recent generation of Diesel vehicles.
They are clean and well compliant when they leave the factory but not for very long.
I think the complex gubbins now fitted to clean up exhausts does not have reasonable service reliability.
Research identifying the significant risk from Diesel exhaust particulates was well circulated 30 years ago.
Somehow its importance got missed by the EU standards setters.
Meanwhile the politicians let diesel car sales go through the roof and got on with wind farms and solar panels.

John