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Electric cars were promoted a few years ago due to high energy costs, but it failed to take off as expected. I've read a few things about it and found out that it was good for environment, but costs were high for general public.
An electric car should have the followings:
1. Operating range should be longer than 400 km. For travelling by cars, a driver should take a break after a 400 km drive. How long is his/her break?
2. Full recharging battery time should be within 1 hour. Traveler could start his/her trip again after 1-hour lunch/dinner.
3. Most of people don't need a sport car [expensive]. Therefore quick acceleration is not an important issue. BMW [expensive brand name] has made an electric car cost $50K. I guess, other car manufacturers could make their cars less than $30K, which should be in the affordable range for most of people.
4. Operating cost of an electric car should be lower or comparable to a gasoline or hybrid car, e.g. recharging costs, car parts, maintenance, etc.
5. How about the life span of car batteries? Is it recycle-able or be replaced at reasonable cost? Is it cost effective? We must be able to save a lot of money on operating cars using electricity in order to pay for replacement of batteries.
6. Maximum speed of a car should be at 180 km to make the car's speedometer look good. A max speed of a gasoline car is 240 km. However the speed limit is 100 km/hour on Canada's highways. However most of people were driving at 120 km/hour on HW. The car should be able to handle 140 km/hour well for those passing other cars on the highway, then drivers slowed down to the maximum allowable speed. Thus 180 km/hour is a selling feature, but it is not essential for operating a car normally. Those would like to drive fast should be able to buy a sport car.
7. Recharge stations: if a station and installation cost were reasonable, any fast food restaurant chains would install them for extra income and draw customers. I guess, stations with credit-card-only are sufficient.
8. A car's horse power comparable to a 4-cylinder car should be sufficient?
[... what do you think? ...]
Notes: I have an old Toyota Camry with a 4-cylinder engine (2.4 L) --> Its horse power and acceleration are sufficient for me in general.
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Another type is Hydro Fuel car. This car required equipped refuel station, which can refill in 10 minutes as they said. Anyways, this type of fuel sounds "explosive and flammable" to me.
Electrovaya also provides a good portfolio for lithium-ion battery products for many applications including electric cars, power grid storage, and solar power storage. However, we don't have a lot of lithium mines around the world. If lithium ion was used worldwide for electric cars, we would run out of lithium soon. Anyways electric car and home solar energy with battery storage sound safer to me.
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It is good to have a type of environment friendly cars on the road to save "oil and gas" for several centuries to come. For sure I'd need "oil and gas" for my entire life and my great grand ... kids too.
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