Electric SBK anyone?

[Desmostro]

That is the platform that one of the GPXTT teams is building their bikes on.
It raises the weight of the vehicle a bit because of having to build a frame around the battery area. It creates a few engineering challenges but I like it as a concept while we're stuck with batteries.
Granted, anti-stupidity would have to be added to the UI to alleviate dumbunnies from frying batteries etc.   

Other concepts that Mission Motors are playing with utilize hybrid power packs like super-capacitors. There are a lot of opportunities in this direction.
Tiny, massively powerful, super light weight. Almost there...

I wonder if anyone has considered a battery exchance similar to propane exchange at gas stations. You could roll in to the gas station and swap out your empty for a full charged cell for a fee. If there were a handful of standard batteries types, it might be possible. (I am sure there would be issues with this system as well though)

[Aflac]

Your favorite restaurant would tell you to f-off and go park it at the commercial recharging station down the street. Future speaking and all.

Yeah bad statement... I'm sure they will add stations at the restaurant to bring in customers. (Future speaking)

[LowThudd]

Yeah bad statement... I'm sure they will add stations at the restaurant to bring in customers. (Future speaking)

Probably...easy enough to do. I wish McDs would open up a biodiesel pump so I can run my MB on the same stuff that made my ass fat. 

[Desmostro]

Probably...easy enough to do. I wish McDs would open up a biodiesel pump so I can run my MB on the same stuff that made my ass fat. 

    ROTFL

[Drjones]

Yeah bad statement... I'm sure they will add stations at the restaurant to bring in customers. (Future speaking)

Too much liability.  Most restaurants will still want to be just restaurants and only deal with every tenth customer wanting to sue them for food poisoning instead of adding the hassle of every fifth customer wanting to sue them for shorting out thier vehicle as well.

[Desmostro]

Too much liability.  Most restaurants will still want to be just restaurants and only deal with every tenth customer wanting to sue them for food poisoning instead of adding the hassle of every fifth customer wanting to sue them for shorting out thier vehicle as well.

in California there were FREE charging stations in many places down town, at parking lots, ferry terminals, train stations, and restaraunts. All subsidized.

Watch the film "Who killer the electric car" if you want to' know in detail what happened. It was a hugs auto maker lobby to get rid of them.
Car manufactures make very little money on electric cars as by far most of their profits come from REPAIRS.
An electric car has NO radiator, differential, no oil system, no carburator injectors no mufflers, no cat converters, no transmition, no leaking gaskets, no sparlplugs, no spendy tun ups, no fuel lines, no air or oil filters, ...

You get the idea. What are they going to repair? not much. That's the point.   
The big Car companies want electric cars like they want to go out of business.   
It's a whole different business platform. That's why new companies are stepping up.

It's good for everyone except mechanics and ford, gm, etc.

[junior varsity]

Same thing happened with high speed train systems in the US during the Clinton administration - except substitute "car industry" for "airline industry" for the villain. Things were moving along ok until the monica-distraction; one of the big movers and shakers for the trains used to swim every day at the pool I worked at, and would tell me all about the stuff. A few years later he mysteriously quit coming, and we later learned it was suicide. At the time, I didn't really know what depression looked like (still don't), but I now know its easy to miss and not trivial.

[Drjones]

   No, they killed it because no one outside of LA wanted a car that could only go 100 miles, took 0.75-3 hours to refuel and costed twice as much as a car that could go 300 miles and be refueled in less than 5 minutes.  Yes, it was research and yes the whole car industry is generally short sighted especially when their shareholders start selling when the EPS drops.  If you want to split hairs then no, maintenance profits don't go to the manufacturer they go to the dealership by and large and actually the manufacturers make more money on the financing interest than the sale of the vehicle.

For an electric vehicle future we're not talking 800 cars in LA here. That's cutesy novelty research status.  We're talking 250+ million across the country and more world wide.  That's business status.  In business status there is no free.  Not for long anyway.

[Bill in OKC]

I read that the power grid in this country cannot handle charging everyone's car if the country went to electric cars.  The study assumed everyone would plug in their cars when they got home from work.  Lots of infrastructure upgrading needed in parallel with increasing electric vehicles.  An IT guy at work said they were recycling laptop batteries because China had stopped exporting lithium. 

[Howie]

This is how the EV1 ( the GM electric car) came to be:

California was going to possibly pass a law that you can not sell cars there unless you built a certain amount of "zero emission cars, I forget the particulars.  California is a big state and a big market.  GM and others built electric cars anticipating passage of this law.  The cars were too expensive to sell, and would also would have been too expensive to keep on the road for a normal lifespan.  GM decided to lease the cars at a loss and destroy them after the lease period.  The California law never passed, so no new ones were ever built to replace the old ones.  Other manufacturers used similar strategy. 

Just like AMC Pacers, Gremlins, Edsels and Pintos the EV1 and the other electric cars had a few hardcore fans who mourned the death of their cars.  Someone made a movie.  End of story.

[Desmostro]

If you watch the film, "Who killed the electric car?" you will see a very different perspective, on film, documented.
Narrated by Martin Sheen

You can see almost the whole thing in parts on Youtube:
Who Killed The Electric Car? 2/9

There were a lot of hard core fans, a lot of politics, lobbying etc. You had to apply to get one. There was a massive waiting list. No one was allowed to own one. No one was allowed to keep one after the lease. They came to people's houses and hauled them off with people freaking out. Explain that. When is the last time a car company sent trucks around to pick up ALL of a model of fully functioning car? Then took thousands of perfectly good fully functioning cars and ground them up. That's a little weird.

They did this because the law was passed. Then they overturned it.

This is how the EV1 ( the GM electric car) came to be:

California was going to possibly pass a law that you can not sell cars there unless you built a certain amount of "zero emission cars, I forget the particulars.  California is a big state and a big market.  GM and others built electric cars anticipating passage of this law.  The cars were too expensive to sell, and would also would have been too expensive to keep on the road for a normal lifespan.  GM decided to lease the cars at a loss and destroy them after the lease period.  The California law never passed, so no new ones were ever built to replace the old ones.  Other manufacturers used similar strategy. 

Just like AMC Pacers, Gremlins, Edsels and Pintos the EV1 and the other electric cars had a few hardcore fans who mourned the death of their cars.  Someone made a movie.  End of story.

[muskrat]

yeah, lets let the Gov subsidize the system like they did Ethanol (DEAD) and for that matter soon to be AMTRACK which has been receiving federal funds from the get go.  The worst thing we could do is let the Gov build our technology which they believe is the future.  People demand something and someone steps up, lets just hope sensible and knowledgeable people get moving fast.  I want my hydrogen damnit.

[Howie]

If you watch the film, "Who killed the electric car?" you will see a very different perspective, on film, documented.
Narrated by Martin Sheen


There were a lot of hard core fans, a lot of politics, lobbying etc. You had to apply to get one. There was a massive waiting list. No one was allowed to own one. No one was allowed to keep one after the lease. They came to people's houses and hauled them off with people freaking out. Explain that. When is the last time a car company sent trucks around to pick up ALL of a model of fully functioning car? Then took thousands of perfectly good fully functioning cars and ground them up. That's a little weird.

They did this because the law was passed. Then they overturned it.

You are correct, the law was passed, then overturned, long time ago.  When these cars were leased they were to go back to the manufacturer and get destroyed.  Those were the terms of the lease.  Yes, when the program fell apart GM pulled the plug (pun intended) and retrieved the cars that remained.  GM lost tons of money on every EV1 produced and was not willing to spend tons more keeping them alive.  If the owners who loved them had to pay the true cost of owning these cars they would not have been so loyal.