nerfer

The Electric Car Battery Battle

The latest I've heard is that Toyota hasn't narrowed their options yet for batteries in a PHEV. bike45, how do you come up with 1/4 of 1%? Hybrids are now 3% of new car sales (more if they could make more batteries, it's supply limited). Hybrids in general are getting about 40% better mileage than fleet average (high-efficiency hybrids sell the most), so my math shows 1.2% improvement in overall consumption from all new cars sold today. As hybrid sales go up, so does this number.
Yes, it's a small start. But we simply cannot continue the status quo - we absolutely need to switch to hybrids and BEVs and public transportation or we'll be faced with only being able to afford bikes.

The Electric Car Battery Battle

Also Chevron, via their part ownership of Cobasys, has long blocked the use of NiMH for pure electric vehicles, using their NiMH patents they bought up to block the large-format NiMH batteries needed for that type of application, even for companies like Toyota that get their NiMH batteries elsewhere.
Cobasys is apparently for sale though (and having $ problems), see: www.courthousenews.com....
Gee, maybe if they supplied BEVs they would be making more money?? Even a 50-mile range in a reduced-price car would be sufficient for a whole lot of people (I know I'd strongly consider buying such a car), but they think they need the full range of a gas car before anybody will buy it for their commuting needs.