It’s important to appreciate Better Place’s part in the scheme of things – they’re not inventing the batteries or making the cars, they’re just running the recharging scheme and financing the batteries to overcome the sticker shock.

They’re also a startup, and even successful startups are reknowned for being wildly optimistic on product schedules.

Bosch’s take on things is probably a bit pessimistic, but you’re not going to see significant numbers of electric cars for a few years yet – the battery tech just isn’t ready yet.

http://www.betterplace.com

It is worth a look – viable electric cars on green power in the near future.

At least that is what they claim.

I quite take your point about cartage (and one might add that in some cases the trips would probably involve mutliple persons, elderly or infirm etc) but the point is that out of that 40% there would be many that could be done by walking/biking or avoided through trip consolidation.

Part of this is a back end problem — we need to start redesigning cities to decrease the typical distances between residences and jobs and major services precisely so as to facilitate more rational driving practices, car pooling etc.

Also it’s gonna get really Darwinian as more and more electric cars silently hit the roads where more and more people are plugged into iPods and earphones. I can see the TAC ads now. “He didn’t listen.”

The car – or something like it – is with us permanently, and thank god for that. It’s probably the most liberating technology ever.

Forty percent of our car trips are less than two miles. If we can make these trips by walking or biking instead, we are already reducing congestion.

and

…Outside of the half-mile area, there would be single family homes. However, the central commercial district would still be within an easy walk or bicycle ride..

is that for a large number of these trips it is to get something that is not easilly transported on a bike. I am forever going down to the hardware shop – 2 kms away – to buy lengths of wood and whatnot for home projects. Other times its 5 or 6 bags of groceries. Or a large doona, or other heavy stuff. People just don’t want to have to lug this sort of stuff on the back of a bike or on public transport. You are going to have a really hard time getting people to give that sort of freedom up.

Interesting.

There is of course no proof that electric cars recharged by household solar panels will cause chaos and misery. That however, is not germane because you will never get a sufficient number of solar panels onto household and other rooves to generate the power needed to maintain the current car user ratio and usage patterns we have now, particularly when you map this onto the likely increases in population andf thus car use we are likely to see. You’re also ignoring the full energy lifecycle costs of all those vehicles, which also has to be generated someplace. And of course you’re ignoring the environmental costs of all those solar panels, the materiel for which also has to come from someplace.

The massive installed cost of all those panels has to come from some pool of funds too and of course they have to be maintained to do their job. The fully levelized cost of these is likely to be well at the upper end too.

You’re also forgetting the timelines — the schedule feasibility question. Given the huge time lag involved in switching vehicles and the considerable expense involved it’s unlikely that a substantial number of ICEs will be replaced anytime soon and if they start being discarded, their cost will fall creating a Jevons’ paradox-style drag on the transition.

That’s why the most energy efficient alternative at scale that could fit onto a timeline of rapid trasnport emissions reductions necessarily has a major switch away from individualised commuter transport at its heart.

That is a very strong statement Fran.

Where is your proof that e.g. electric cars recharged by household solar panels, is going to cause “chaos and misery”???