On May 21, 7:42 pm, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
Pure electric vehicles are slowly emerging as quite possibly the final
answer. There has been rapid fire announcements of lithium ion battery
technology advancements in the key areas of energy density and charge time.
Toshiba and others have Lithium Polymer cells that can be fully charged in
less than 5 minutes and still last 20,000 recharge cycles. Charge time is
just as important as driving range with electrics with one offsetting the
other. If the vehicle can be recharged in 5 minutes at convienient
locations, who cares if it only goes 150 miles between charges. For serious
"off grid" driving, the Volt approach looks good.

The so called "hydrogen economy" is just bafflegab from the Bush
administration to delay any action. Hydrogen is not likely to be part of
the solution. An "electric economy" however is easy to imagine.
Electricity is extremely flexible. An electric vehicle can be slowly
recharged overnight at home or quickly at a charging station. The
electricity can come from almost any source.

My original thought is that even an electric could tow a glider trailer if
the trailer itself supplied some of the power. Imagine side boxes ahead and
behind each trailer wheel containing batteries and wheels containing
electric motors. The trailer then powers itself and the "tow" vehicle just
guides it.

Bill Daniels

Disagree wholesale. Li battery technology development has plateaued
over the last few years. Sony's Nexelion is as good as it gets and
it's not good enough. Li-polymer didn't give the better energy density
promised and suffers equally from the one of the problem of all li
batteries - ageing. All lithium batteries die within a few years
regardless of how they are used (li-ion batteries can be cycled
countless times). Just ask any iPod owner. All the current research is
going into sustaining high discharge rates, and the first results will
be seen in the 2009 Prius which will drop nickel batteries for li with
a considerable weight and space saving.

No, there's a reason why all the R&D money is going into fuel cells -
huge potential. Fuel cell efficiency is improving rapidly and hydrogen
storage via simple compression is already practical (witness the 300
mile drive on a single tank by a couple of GM fuel cars last week)
while hydrogen adsorption has (again that magic feature) huge
potential:

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journa...otPalomino.asp

It's that "low-hanging fruit" thing. Battery technology's has already
been picked while fuel cell's are still hanging.


Dan