Tuesday 11 October 2011

Electrifying

What are your thoughts on electric vehicles?



Here’s a Nissan LEAF electric car hooked up to a power-point outside a Nissan showroom that I came across when I was in Ireland recently.


I’ve never seen one of these power-points before and, is it just me, or would you be a bit reluctant to just leave it like that for the necessary length of time it will take to fully charge the batteries.

Anyway, whenever I hear folk go on about how eco-friendly such vehicles are I always think…

3 comments:

  1. The question I want to ask about electric cars is: how does the heating work?

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  2. I wondered about heating and defrosting too, assume it's all done electrically. About a year and a half ago I attended a couple of meetings of the local electric vehicle association people. At that time it was mostly Toyota Prius and Tesla owners and a smattering of Ford Ranger trucks.Some of the trucks were built by Ford and some were owner-built conversions. Having a Ford Ranger with a blown gas motor I was interested in doing a conversion myself. I've gone as far as purchasing a book on self-conversion. Most kits consist of a nine inch motor powered by 20 lead acid batteries. The tricky part is the controller if you decide to do it all yourself. Not being super electrically inclined I'd probably purchase a complete kit. Right now I have too many gas powered projects going, but it is something still on the back burner of my mind... might have to do another blog if I go that route. The cartoon brings up an interesting point. That, and the exotic batteries in the high end jobs. Lately though the range of these type of vehicles has been getting better. And too, GM the company that "killed the electric car" now is producing an award winning EV. I remember reading an editorial in a cycle mag a long time ago that predicted electric dirt bikes. That has come true, as well as drag bikes and roadracing bikes. If you go to Jay Leno's site, he did a piece on a high school kid that did a home built electric bike. In California there are a lot of charging stations. Who knows?

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  3. In Shinya Kimura's blog there is a new electric bike in a recent post.

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