I wrote:
It takes quite a while to recharge with 110 V. 14 hours. With a 440
V outlet "you get an 80% charge in just 26 minutes." Still not as
fast as refilling a gasoline tank, as Mike Carrell pointed out.
That problem is addressed with the "battery swap-out" plan advocated
by the company "Better Place" http://www.betterplace.com/
Quoting another Wired.com article linked with this one:
"The first production electric vehicle from Renault will feature a
replaceable battery pack designed to work with the $500,000 battery
swap station designed by Silicon Valley startup Better Place.
The car, which is based on the Megane sedan (pictured) and called the
Fluence, will place the battery behind the rear seat. An opening
under the car will allow the Better Place swap station to remove and
replace the battery in about the time it takes to fill a car with
gasoline. . . ."
There are many different solutions to individual limitations and
problems in the electric car and plug-in hybrid car business. This
was true in microcomputer business back in the early 1980s.
Unfortunately, no single computer design could do everything you
needed and it was difficult (or impossible) to integrate all of the
methods together. It is even more difficult with an electric car. I
suppose you could have a battery swap-out shop or recharge at home
plus have text-mail systems to update you on recharging or battery
pack availability, plus this, plus that, plus an onion. The end
results is what you see on the back of some older computers: many
different connectors, some improbable shapes, most of them unused.
They add expense and complexity to the motherboard and operating
system. The USB was finally invented 15 years after it should have
been. It was a sweeping, single solution to fragmented standards and
an overly complex problem. That's what I hope to see with cold fusion
as well. Not only will it be far cheaper and better, it will be a
one-size-fits-all energy source for a much broader range of
applications than any conventional system.
The advertisements from oil companies these days say: "We need many
different energy solutions, from oil to wind to nuclear." I think to
myself: "Oh no we don't." When you see more than 2 or 3 technologies
applied to more-or-less the same application, you are seeing too many
solutions for one problem. It is inefficient. Too many people are
being trained in disciplines that cannot reinforce one another. Too
much engineering talent is going into it. In transportation, for
example, it seldom makes sense for trains, automobiles, airplanes and
ships to serve the same destination. Perhaps the only places that is
need that are Manhattan and Hong Kong. Robert Cringley in "Accidental
Empires" wrote that more than 2 standards in a technology holds
things back and delays development. He describes, for example, post
WWII records transitioned from 78 rpm to both 33 and 45 rpm.
Consumers were confused and unsure which to use, and the record
market stagnated. The same kind of thing happened with Blu-ray versus
HD-DVD standards.
45 rpm was a one-for-one replacement for the 78 rpm records, with the
same recording time per side. People often think backward
compatibility is good when actually it serves no purpose. Finally,
record players were invented that could handle all three standards.
The uses of the 3 standards also diverged, with the 45 rpm records
going to the teenager and jukebox market. (The word "teenager" was
coined at about this time; neither the concept nor word existed before that.)
There was a tremendous effusion of computer CPU and ALU architecture
in the 1970s and 1980s, as minicomputers and microcomputers competed.
Now there is only Intel. The effusion was good. It was necessary. But
so was the winnowing out. We don't want all our top-notch computer
engineering talent devoted to this one problem for too long.
Regarding automobiles, we need a shakeout in the next 10 or 20 years
leaving only electric vehicles and perhaps plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles. There is not enough room for pure gasoline models, hydrogen
fuel cells and probably not for swap-out battery packs. One good
battery ends the need for that overnight.
- Jed
