Will we be able to buy pracitcal electric vehicles soon?

Hi John,

I'm excited! james here at AES lent me his copy of "Who Killed the Electric Car". At first I protested watching the movie- I thought it was sort of like preaching to the choir, but I now that I have seen it am glad I spent the time to watch it. I got a lot more out of http://www.pluginamerica.com/ then I did the movie. 

As for the Zap, I'll believe it when I see it- but energy is energy. Even if it can charge in 10 minutes they haven't said anything about the kWh it's gonna take to make that charge (at least that I've seen). I would really love to see  some advancements in battery technology- I think storage is almost more of a problem then generation in RE right now.

There is the old argument/joke about when Southern California switches to all plug in cars and all of LA blacks out- generation is still the issue that has yet to be worked out when it comes to plug-in's. You can burn gas in downtown LA or in coal in Oxnard- you still haven't escaped the larger issues carbon emission and resource economics.

Charging your car on your own solar power is the way to go imo. I remember reading an article last summer in Home Power about some people that were charging there EV off solar. I forget the issue but I'll post it here when I get into work tomorrow. I also helped a client design a PV car port for charging the GEM electrical vechials. All in all I think it's the way to go.

As for Dane, I don't know what the state taxes are for EV's. If anyone does know please share. Are the taxes on propane cars a local tax or federal? What's great about the United States government, federal and local, is that it's dynamic. If we don't like the taxes that are being imposed on us we don't have to toss a bunch of tea in the ocean- we can organize and lobby and tell our representatives that they're not going to be elected unless they get rid of that tax.

James,

Actually there are quite a few independent efforts going on, some just out of the box. Here is a very promising group of folks:

http://www.lionev.com/

They are touting two conversion groups that plan to put a few thousand EVs on the road this and next year for sub 35k. I know these conversion shops from reputation, and they are definitely legit.

The dam GM/Chevron built is leaking at the edges.. and soon we'll have a full on flood :-)

--Timothy

PS: Zap? Well, they've been notoriously unreliable. Tesla WILL deliver, but not for 3 - 5 years with anything sub 35k. For that you'll have to go to the small shops.