The Electric Car Is Coming

Finally, what looks like a sensible electric car. It's expensive but it's competitive. I doubt it could be as cheap as a Smart Car (TCO) but it's competitive. So, if avoiding buying gas, or avoiding carbon use, or making use of that insane solar array is a goal this looks like a reasonable electric vehicle.
* It's small but it has 4 wheels, not 3. 3 wheeled vehicles probably work fine but they look funny and right now that's a concern for most consumers.
* It has enough range for city driving: 50 miles.
* It's cost to purchase is competitive with 5 seat economy cars.
* It can do 70mph, if the DOT passes it for safety. This will be important for those who live in cities with a beltway.

It looks like it has a big limitation: A lead acid battery. To the end user that means that the 50 mile range is not something you can do regularly. Lead acid batteries die if you fully discharge them often. They're cheap, and handle partial charges well which makes them perfect for your car starter. I'd like to see this in a NiMH version but I'm guessing that would add a few thousand to the cost.

For this kind of vehicle I would think it'd be reasonable to cut the battery size by about 20% (assuming you can do a full discharge) to 40 miles range and drop the power such that it can barely hold 55: This would be a stop gap car for folks who can happily give up freeway driving. Towns like, well, Lincoln, NE which have no freeway don't require a car that can exceed 45mph but they do require 45mph. It'd make an excellent second car for quite a few people: The car "daddy drives to work."

This isn't how I know the electric car is coming though. This is. Electric bikes are becoming cost effective using Li-Ion cells and pedal based throttle. It's a lot easier to make this (electric power supply) work on a bicycle due to the efficiency. And what happened the last time that bicycles became affordable for the common man? Henry Ford and others made cars affordable for him as well. It has to do with the shocking amount of infrastructure and function that they share.

You can currently buy what looks like a nice electric bike for $1,900 in the US. They don't appear to be popular but they're new. While $1,900 sounds like a fortune for a bike it works out quite a bit cheaper than an automobile: If you actually use the bike. The advantage? While Giant doesn't seem to be forward with their numbers most of these bikes offer a 2:1 power ratio. That means that the bike gives twice the power you do. So a regular guy with no cycling history can keep up with someone who cycles semi-regularly. It means going to work at 15mph without choosing between crawling up the hills or getting sweaty.