33Nick

Time for America to Fire First Shot in the EV Revolution

I think it boils down to with lemon, make lemonade. True Detroit has a formidable arsenal of SUVs and pickup trucks and "electrifying" them would be a good short term solution. Your point is valid, a few extra hundred pounds don't mean much for heavy vehicles. At least it will give the choice for those who need SUVs and pickups for their businesses to have them around their neighborhood driving, often less than 40 miles a day. It would be a much more affordable daily operation cost for them.

In the meantime, you made me curious to see how lead acid batteries will evolve going into the future. I still think a hybrid battery system makes so much sense. I recently drove AFS Trinity's "150 miles per gallon" hybrid and was greatly impressed both on papers and actually driving it. Mixing ultracapacitators with newer versions of acid-based batteries would make sense. AFS estimates the use of ultracapacitators stretches the life of its lithium pack to 180,000. Sometimes innovation comes from coupling different technologies and not necessarily inventing new ones.

One thing is for sure, we need a choice to rekindle the economy. People are too emotional. You have to look at what makes sense to your driving habit.