It's supposed to preview in B.C. here this coming year, and will also do so in Washington state, across the border. So what do we think of it?
For starters, it looks nice. Much nicer than my 1932 Chevrolet, the first used car I ever had. But as someone pointed out in comments elsewhere yesterday, this is Canada, where it gets really cold in the winters, and unlike our internal-combustion engines, this battery pack powered cutie won't naturally be developing a lot of wasted heat we can direct into the passenger compartment for needed warmth on cold days, and to defrost or defog the windows prior to take-off. If it uses an electric heater, the battery will discharge much faster. So what to do? Add a propane heater? The whole concept of this vehicle is to get away from fossil fuels, so I'm wondering how it will be heated, and what that will do to its range on a full charge of the batteries. Is this really a 'real car' or just a glorified golf cart with extended range, for thirty big ones or so? Time will tell...
Other concerns that come to mind:-
Our colder weather in winter reduces the power available from batteries. There's also the problem of providing electrical outlets for recharging in places like the 1,200-car garage underneath this six-tower high-rise condo complex here. At present, there's only an occasional outlet in the garages, for building maintenance purposes, and none of those would likely be suitable for vehicle recharging. I can see where this recharging will pose a problem that will require some major changes. Perhaps, in the future, your parking space will include a convenient recharge outlet, but until then, it's going to be a problem. And not the least of that will be where to find that needed electricity.
There's a lot of hype going on about electric cars at the moment. The Nissan looks really cool. It's strange that I've never seen an article about the heating problem anywhere. Has it been solved in some sort of genius way?
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm aware of. Do you remember the old original VW Beetles?
ReplyDeleteThey had a very insufficient hot air heating system that they eventually supplemented with a gasoline-fired
heater that actually put out heat.
Maybe this will need one too. Or maybe a smokeless catalytic heater
fueled by kerosene.
Yeah, it probably works this way. Innovation is the key. If I remember the beetle: ha, I've owned 3 of them, and was very fond of them. I also did all my own maintenance. I really loved that car. They were red, the first one was white.
ReplyDeleteThen came the day when I knocked over a deer, an incident which made the beetle inoperable and I had to rent a Vauxhall/Opel Corsa to get to work. What a leap forward in technology! I scrapped my beetle, and ever since have been driving the very Corsa, now I own the second. A very reliable car, so silent and comfortable and with a low fuel consumption.
I'm thinking of buying a mobile battery-powered power unit so that I can pre-heat the car and defrost the windshield before take-off early in the mornings when I HAVE to run up the car to get to the farms of my customers. I just hate iced-up cars.