Plug and Play

It would be if the US had a real energy policy. Unfortunately, so long as fossil-fuel powered lobbyists control the congress, it's not in the cards.

Is this about Electric Vehicles or Hybrids?

I think it is sort of a 'Chicken or Egg' thing. People are (to some degree) reluctant to buy a car that has little support infrastructure in place. Societally there is (to about the same degree) a reluctance to build expensive infrastructure for very limited demand.

Price alone is not the apparent culrpit. A Blackle search yields MANY cash incentives to purchase one, and there are many places where sales taxes, parking fees, yearly license fees, etc. are waived. In Denmark, a sales tax of 180% of the purchase price applies to new cars; an EV is exempt! Now THERE is a cash incentive, but there are only 500 or so EV's registered.

Or do the "...fossil-fuel powered lobbyists control the congress" all around the world?

For many its also a practicality of use issue. If it cant meet the normal driving requirements and save the owner money its not going to ever sell well regardless of its cost and support infrastructure.

We live in a "must have now" socitey. So untill we can design a true EV with batteries that can fully recharge within minutes instead of hours I personally do not think this is the wave of the future.

But that's just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions....their just like *@!**$@! everybody has one:)

One of my favorite topics. And I do think the electric car will supplant the combustion engine in the not to distant future. I believe a zinc air/metal battery will be developed soon that will increase a vehicles range to over 400 miles/charge (Google Cody Friesen if you like). The battery is a big issue to be sure regardless if its based on lithium, zinc, or some type of ultra capacitor. The biggest problem I see is actually with electricity production. We all know about the evils of releasing carbon. I'm yet to see any carbon capture system that doesn't put costs right through the roof. Here are some very rough numbers to consider. The Tesla car (lithium Ion) claims to consume a little over 11KWH to go 40 miles (I'm sure plenty of you blow past 40 several times a week). Of course this varies a lot depending on slope, wind, heater-A/C usage, etc. The average American home uses about the same amount a day. And of course I loosely use the term "average" here. I use less but I'm an efficiency nut. The point is this. If we switched over from fossil to electricity to power our vehicles we would have to more than double of generation of electricity. Even if a 10-15% penetration of electric cars is desired we're going to have to generate a lot more power than we do today. Do you want the local coal fired plant to double in size? Are you ready to have a bank of solar panels and some home storage ( zinc flow) at the ready to charge up the family grocery getter? Regardless of cost of a KWH or gallon of fuel the change to electric will require a massive change in infrastructure and capacity/storage.

I saw a show on PBS awhile ago about how Denmark's Oil & Natural Gas (DONG) was implementing a plan to provide electric cars where:

• the utility would own the cars' batteries, not the car owner
• the owners would pay the electricity by miles driven
• charging stations would not be on the homeowners bills
• at workplace charging stations, during peak demand periods, the utility would actually "take back" energy from cars to meet demand
• for long drives, car owners would drive into robot operated battery replacement stations, where a freshly and fully charged battery would replace the depleted battery in the car
• Denmark gets a lot of energy from off-shore wind, helping charge vehicles overnight

Here's one link ... maybe you can find more info: http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/fuzzy-logic/17370-denmark-signs-deal-to-implement-israels-electric-car-project

It seems like they've addressed a number of problems of using electric cars

I can remember a long time ago battery powered delivery trucks drove along the Delaware River water front in Philadelphia. So electric vehicles are not a new idea.

I don't believe in government subsidies. If electric cars are a good idea, the idea would sell itself. It would save money and not cost money. There would be a rush to get on the 'gravy train' to grab returns on investment. Oil lobbyists wouldn't be able to stop it because no government money is involved. That's the way an unmanipulated enterprise works.

I could drive one for everyday chores but it would need to be a second car. I still need the driving range of my gas powered car. The expense of maintaining two cars nullifies any advantages of ownership.

I try to be environmentally competent but it's not a religion.

--- CHAS