09-11-2011, 07:35 PM
BernDog wrote:
[quote=freeradical]
It's not a question about whether swapping out batteries is technically feasible, it's about the chicken and the egg.
It's far easier to implement natural gas distribution at fuel stations, but it hasn't caught on enough to the point where the average consumer would consider natural gas as a fuel. There just aren't enough natural gas fueling stations. If you're taking a long trip with a natural gas vehicle, you would have to plan ahead to find out where you can get fuel, and probably go out of your way to get that fuel.
Good point about the chicken vs. egg thing. With portable fuel (natural gas) what you say is a major issue. With batteries, even removable batteries could still be charged in-car at home (which would still be cheaper because you wouldn't have the charging station overhead). But as it caught on enough, there would be enough of a market to make swap stations financially feasible...as long as the charge at home cars already had universal batteries in them. That would eliminate the range issues with a standard electric car. There would not need to be as many of these swap stations as there are gas stations now, because most people would still charge at home, as long as their regular commute didn't go over the vehicle range. You'd only need to do a swap when self-charging wasn't convenient/possible, or when you're going on a longer trip. This is why I said the industry needs to get on this now if it is ever to be an option.
Same as the argument about not switching over to electric now, because you're still burning fuel to make electricity. The answer I give on that is still, "Yeah, for now."
If they can get the price down, I think cars like the Chevy Volt are a good way to go. You can charge it at home and it will run on the charge stored in the batteries until the batteries get low, then it switches on a little on-board gasoline engine that doesn't directly power the car, instead it runs at a (very efficient - economical) steady rate to power a generator that charges the batteries. So you end up running only on plug-in electrical power for all your short trips (and for many people that is the bulk of their trips), but the little gasoline motor can keep the car going on longer trips.