On 9/12/07, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
Meanwhile I'm much more interested in the supercapacitors that are supposed to allow electric cars to go 500 miles between 5-minute recharges. If I can buy one of those at a price point similar to an ICE car, I'm all over it, because if I drive 500 miles, I'll need to stop to use the bathroom or something for 5 minutes anyway. "Gas stations" will provide recharging stations where you can plug in, then go inside and buy cokes, smokes, chips and dips, lottery tickets and maybe even cricket wickets.
All Storage issues aside...can you imagine the size of wires it would take to handle the current flow it would take to charge a capacitor capable of running an electric car for 500 miles (using current electrical engines of course)?! Not to mention the havoc it would play on our electrical grid...massive capacitive loads being connected to the grid for 5 minutes? We would have blackouts across the nation from these "fueling stations."
Before there is ANY chance of a plug in car that can charge quickly, we'll have to almost completely rebuild our power grid...