Okay, so the headline is a reference to an obscure, bootlegged Prince song. The tie in is that San Francisco's new electric car program is linking up with the global imitative called "Project Better Place" to begin a mass deployment of electric cars.
Currently Project Better Place is working with the Israeli government to roll out a nationwide EV charging infrastructure, and Renault-Nissan has agreed to build the cars. This plan would dovetail nicely with Nissan's previously announced project to bring an all-electric car to the US. California would be a prime market for such a car and if a city like San Francisco is willing to sign on and help build an infrastructure, that's all the better for Nissan.
Naturally, such a car would run on the latest battery technology lithium-ion. In March there was a fire at South Korea's LG Chem and that has shrunk global supplies of lithium-ion batteries. I found this out the hard way when I went to buy a replacement notebook battery from Dell and the price was much higher than before. "Dude, you're getting ripped off." Anyways, this made me wonder about Tesla and how this supply shortage of batteries effects their production plans/costs since their "battery" is comprised of something like 6800 lithium-ion battery cells. I contacted Tesla PR, but no response has been received yet.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
San Francisco's Electric Car Initiative: A Better Place to Die and a Li-Ion Battery Plant Goes Up in Smoke
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San Francisco is known for braindead environmental initiatives (take those terrific flops, windmills, for example) but this is dumb even for San Frnacisco pols. Perhaps someone better clue the mayor that San
Frnacisco is a very small place and cars need to travel long distances, making San Fran's support for a screwy and very expensive unnecessary scheme like Agassi's Better Place (Better Con would be more accurate) of no significance. Those who would opt to become slaves to this scheme need recharge and swapping stations OUTSIDE of San Francisco, as in all the way across the US.
You don't even need swap stations in a place as tiny as San Fran. And you also don't need to con ans rape the cionsumers with a scheme this braindead. No matter, by the time better Place actually gets going, it will be obsolete, compliments of either plug-ins like the Volt, or devices like the EEStor capacitors. The childish believe that going battery only EVs makes any big difference (except for expense and inconvenience) for crude or carbon
avoidance is only valid for those who don't know any better. The Volt by itself can completely eliminate any need for gasoline.
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