Back in January 2008, I wrote
a blog about an exciting new technology for car batteries that would allow them to be charged in the same amount of time as it takes to fill a gas tank in a conventional car. The technology seemed to work, but they were having challenges with manufacturing. Six years later and it still hasn't come to fruition.
In that time, several car companies have released electric-only cars, despite the "range limitation" issue (even Harley-Davidson just revealed a new
electric motorcycle). Most cars can only go one to two hundred miles and then need to be charged for several hours. For most people, this shouldn't be an issue, as most people don't drive more than a couple hundred miles a day. It's only an issue for when people go on vacation/road trip, which is fairly rare.
The other issue is the ability to charge the car where one lives. A lot of people that live here in DC have street parking, which makes charging difficult. Municipalities could replace parking meters with combo charging stations / parking meters. Residential and office buildings could put charging stations in place for every (or most) parking spaces. They could charge for the electricity used just like they charge for use of the space.
Nonetheless, despite it being a rarity (and renting a gas car being a simple solution), the road trip would seem to preclude buying an electric car... until now.
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