The Visitors Center is housed in an old oil tank. Model cars line the showroom. Comfy seats surround tables with iPads. A staircase ascends to a conference room and the reception desk. The theater showing their promotional film uses recycled car seats.
This is A Better Place, a venture-backed American-Israeli company creating the infrastructure for electric cars. The company got its questionable name from a question posed at the 2005 World Economic Forum of how we can make the world a better place by 2020. “End our dependency on oil,” Shai Agassi, the CEO of the company, answered.
Instead of gas, these cars run on recyclable lithium ion batteries. A fully charged battery will last 120km before it runs low. Tired (or empty) batteries can be changed at a switching station, where a robot will switch the battery in less time than it takes to fill a tank of gas.
Agassi launched A Better Place in 2007. Since then, they have deployed networks in Israel, Denmark, the US, Australia, China, France, and Japan. There are two pilot projects in Tokyo and San Francisco deploying electric taxis throughout the cities.
Sitting behind the wheel, the car looks exactly like other cars. But it feels different. It is silent, making the same amount of noise when the car is off as it does when it’s on because there’s no engine. And it’s smooth, feeling no difference when accelerating or slowing because there are no gears to change.
I love the way it glides, that it has little environmental impact without sacrificing quality. That’s nice. But they still have much to do. They need more charging and switching stations built, more cars sold. They need to make it more affordable, to be able to reach those who cannot discount cost-effectiveness. I’d like to think that in another decade or so, by the time I need to consider owning a car (if ever), electric cars will have replaced the gas-guzzlers crowding the highways, that we will be taking serious efforts to end our dependency on oil, and that these marginalized vehicles will be the norm.
Okay also I’ve been driving electric cars long enough now to be really emphatic that the fact that they’re not all automatically built with solar panels in the roofs is a scandal.
And somehow almost every time I tell anyone this they roll their eyes and attempt to explain to me that this would not create a perpetual motion machine because of the limitations of the area relative to the power draw of the motor, which is incredibly annoying because that’s not the point.
Yes it’s possible that driving in the sunshine with a solar collector dripping into the battery would net you a little more mileage on that trip before needing recharge, but the usefulness of a solar-topped electric car is that if you drive it someplace–say, to work–and leave it outside in the sun all day, you’ll definitely have more range available by the time you’re ready to head home.
Also if you fuck up your calculations because of the inefficiency induced by cold weather or something and get yourself stranded without anywhere to charge, like halfway up a mountain or, more likely, six miles from home, you can call for rescue or walk away, come back later, and it’ll be able to move again.
This is important because unlike running out of gas you can’t really go get some electricity.
like imagine if some of the energy that turns into face-melting air when you first turn the AC on was stored as electricity instead of going to waste
Imagine if electric cars were designed and sold on their merits as practical devices and not toys for the rich.
Okay also I’ve been driving electric cars long enough now to be really emphatic that the fact that they’re not all automatically built with solar panels in the roofs is a scandal.
And somehow almost every time I tell anyone this they roll their eyes and attempt to explain to me that this would not create a perpetual motion machine because of the limitations of the area relative to the power draw of the motor, which is incredibly annoying because that’s not the point.
Yes it’s possible that driving in the sunshine with a solar collector dripping into the battery would net you a little more mileage on that trip before needing recharge, but the usefulness of a solar-topped electric car is that if you drive it someplace–say, to work–and leave it outside in the sun all day, you’ll definitely have more range available by the time you’re ready to head home.
Also if you fuck up your calculations because of the inefficiency induced by cold weather or something and get yourself stranded without anywhere to charge, like halfway up a mountain or, more likely, six miles from home, you can call for rescue or walk away, come back later, and it’ll be able to move again.
This is important because unlike running out of gas you can’t really go get some electricity.
like imagine if some of the energy that turns into face-melting air when you first turn the AC on was stored as electricity instead of going to waste
Imagine if electric cars were designed and sold on their merits as practical devices and not toys for the rich.
This post compares the price and performance of the Mercedes B class all electric and 180d dieselcars. In this summary the subsidies and taxes have been stripped out. The all electric costs 39% more and has only 14% of the range of the diesel. Using these metrics, the diesel is 10 times better than the electric car. The 104 mile range of the electric car really confines its use to a daily commute or city runaround which somewhat devalues the 8 second 0-62 mph acceleration. Stripping out taxes on fuel, the running costs per 100 kms are 249p (electric) and 159p (diesel). Contrary to popular belief, electric vehicles (EVs) are considerably more expensive to run. Zero tail pipe emissions (NOx, PM2.5 and CO2) is the clear advantage that the all electric version has. The question then is zero tail pipe emissions worth the extra cost and reduced performance? From;http://euanmearns.com/mercedes-b-class-electric-and-diesel-cars-compared/
You may have been noticing an exciting shift happening in the car industry in 2018. With Tesla releasing the hugely successful Model 3 car and Nissan selling countless Nissan Leaf’s (among others), the motor industry has been given a huge push in the direction of hybrid and electric vehicles. Electric vehicles, if you haven’t heard, use no gasoline to run and rather they plug into your house during the night to charge. Many car companies are announcing their first electric vehicles on the market in 2019! Even more exciting, now that electric cars are being seen as profitable, General Motors, Volvo, Aston Martin, and Jaguar Land Rover have all recently announced that their companies are moving rapidly towards an all electric future. Several countries are also pledging to move towards an all electric future including India and China.
So why is this exciting?
For one, gasoline fueled cars (no matter how clean) have an immense impact on the environment. This is because car exhaust releases pollutants in both solid and gas form. Electric cars on the other hand, release no pollutants (the car batteries are another story, but thats for another day) and do not support the crude oil industry. This is absolutely fantastic as 38 out of the 100 companies that contribute to 71% of our global greenhouse emissions every year are crude oil companies (that is, if I’ve counted correctly). Overall, if these cars are economically viable they could have a huge impact on bringing down these companies that contribute so much to our global footprint!
me: elon musk is a tone-deaf jackass billionaire who got his start in life from his parents’ involvement in aparatheid and he should be mocked
also me: oil industry lobbyists have every reason to want Tesla to fail as an electric car company that produces stylish electric cars and has brought the image of electric cars up from “kind of a niche hippie thing” to “cool and futuristic” and promoting stories of elon musk’s idiocy will make their attacks on electric cars as a ridiculous concept easier to propagate
Okay also I’ve been driving electric cars long enough now to be really emphatic that the fact that they’re not all automatically built with solar panels in the roofs is a scandal.
And somehow almost every time I tell anyone this they roll their eyes and attempt to explain to me that this would not create a perpetual motion machine because of the limitations of the area relative to the power draw of the motor, which is incredibly annoying because that’s not the point.
Yes it’s possible that driving in the sunshine with a solar collector dripping into the battery would net you a little more mileage on that trip before needing recharge, but the usefulness of a solar-topped electric car is that if you drive it someplace–say, to work–and leave it outside in the sun all day, you’ll definitely have more range available by the time you’re ready to head home.
Also if you fuck up your calculations because of the inefficiency induced by cold weather or something and get yourself stranded without anywhere to charge, like halfway up a mountain or, more likely, six miles from home, you can call for rescue or walk away, come back later, and it’ll be able to move again.
This is important because unlike running out of gas you can’t really go get some electricity.
like imagine if some of the energy that turns into face-melting air when you first turn the AC on was stored as electricity instead of going to waste
Imagine if electric cars were designed and sold on their merits as practical devices and not toys for the rich.
Okay, but hear me out: foldable solar panels in the roof!
Unfold them when you’re parked and get 2 or 3 times the amperage.
You could recharge enough to limp home in an hour or two, or drive at night and recharge the batteries while you sleep on long trips.
