Couple of months back, I wrote a blog post about the electric charging stations network proposed by the California start up company Better Place. Better Place has a plan to put [tag-tec]electric charging station[/tag-tec] to charge the battery of a pure electric car. Just like a conventional car stopping by the pump station to fuel up.
One of the drawback of pure electric vehicle (EV) is the drive mileage. A Do It Yourself (DIY) [tag-tec]electric car[/tag-tec] may have a drive mileage of approximately 100 – 150 miles before you have to recharge the battery. Even the high end EV such as the Tesla Roadster has a drive mileage of approximately 220 miles. Can you use an EV for long driving trip? To make that a reality, we need facilities to recharge the batteries of an electric car.
Batter Place went out trying to solve that problem. Their idea is to build battery replacement / switching station. The concept is to drive your electric car to one of these station, drop off the discharged battery and a new charged battery pack will be installed in your car. The whole process takes less than 2 minutes. Sounds like science fiction? Check out the video below.
From the looks of it, the battery switching station only works for certain electric car model with specially design battery storage bay at the bottom of the car. I don’t think the setup will work for a homemade electric car. I guess electric car enthusiasts would have to wait for a battery technology breakthrough for the means to extend the EV drive mileage.
Related web sites:
1) Convert 2 EV and Electricity 4 Gas Guides Review – Top Electric Car Conversion Kit Manuals
2) Shai Agassi, Better Place CEO, Speaks Inspiration
3) Tangible Evidence of a Better Place
4) Better Place -Pioneering the Planet’s Electric Car Infrastructure
5) Is Project Better Place the big answer?