http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/ Engadget Comments for Renault / Project Better Place shows off new electric sedan prototype http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2010 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
God damnit, why can't we have a car that gets 100-150 miles to charge, can be charged from 120v (or 220v) home electricity and doesn't cost over $40,000?

Oh, and now would be good too. We've had the technology for electric vehicles widespread since the late 90s, why the hell are we playing catch-up now?

Oh, it's two years off, five years off from mass production.. blah blah blaaah... getting tired of waiting. I'm about to just grab my bike and say screw it.]]>May 11th 2008 10:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 11th 2008 10:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 11th 2008 11:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 11th 2008 11:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
its all about battery

sufficient energy density (~100 mile range) and longevity battery costs about $10000, unfortunatelly it also lasts like 200 cycles only, so that is why... simple as that, solve the battery problem and the EV revolution might take off
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www.internetdoodles.com]]>May 11th 2008 10:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
Won't come until 2011, and won't be available in North America..where people are fucking sick of high gas prices.

EPIC FAIL. ]]>May 11th 2008 10:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 12:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
This morning in the fair little Kingdom of The Netherlands I paid 1.55 euro per liter which is 9.04 dollars per gallon! So I do what Ignatius suggested: I drive my bicycle more often. Good for the health and good for my wallet.


]]>May 12th 2008 3:30AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/

]]>May 11th 2008 10:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
Making a viable electric car in a garage is actually easier in many ways. I mean for one, these companies have to think about making a profitable product, and while I don't agree with how much profit they want, they do need some, otherwise they wouldn't be here. Secondly, for these companies making an electric car doesn't simply mean "making it", it means they have to change their factories to produce the new engines and the new systems - that's not exactly an over-night thing. They also need to retrain their sales and marketing departements so that they actually know what they're talking about when they describe to us the virtues of their electric engine. Basically the bigger the system the slower it adapts.

Having said, I have no doubt that at least some of the reason for how slow this is moving is simply the influence of oil companies. So actually I'm just as pissed as you are :)]]>May 11th 2008 11:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 12:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
If an electric car explodes or causes serious injury that is made by Big automakers cant you think of the HUGE LAWSUITS that would create? Not only that but the bad Reputation that company would get? Its something that no one should risk.

NOW, i completely agree that everything is always 2,5,10 years away and is pissing me off and it all seems like Vaporware since they have been saying that stuff for the past 10 years.
]]>May 12th 2008 2:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
Lead-acid batteries also have a *very* short lifespan when used in EV conversions - maybe 24 months before they are totally shot.

Automakers know their batteries will have to have very long warranties (realistically, 10 years/100,000 miles) for consumers to accept EVs like the Volt, which is why they're currently testing batteries from different suppliers both in the lab and in "mules" on the road.]]>May 12th 2008 12:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 11:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
Note to self, buy more solar stocks...]]>May 11th 2008 11:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 12:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 1:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 5:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/Aug 15th 2009 8:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 11th 2008 11:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 12:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
Though... I would love an electric car with 250 miles per charge. Distances in Sweden are rather ridiculous, and I frequently drive 125 miles each way, and am then parked in the middle of the forest for an entire weekend... which would then result in an "empty tank" in the car when I want to go home..]]>May 12th 2008 3:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 7:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 5:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 8:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 9:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 13th 2008 9:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
Why Denmark and Israel?

Israel because the Israeli government kinda don't like the people who sit on top of the oil and would rather like not to depend on it. It's really logical - if you had an internal civil war with a people that was very well repressented and sympathized with amongst all of your surrounding neighboors, if you knew that all of your neighboors really didn't like you, and if you simultaneously depended on those very neighboors and the region as a whole for oil to maintain your transportational infrastructure...well, you'd want to quit using gas too.

In Israel, it's a geopolitical, decision; you could even argue that it's a military strategy.

Denmark is different. Here it's because our partially-government owned monopoly-posessing power company is investing in it =]

Somebody has to build the charing stations, and there's a distinct economic interest for our company to do so - see, because they have a near-monopoly, they charge a lot of dough for green energy from us and pay relatively little to anybody farming it.

However, they only get a good profit margin on their investment if they're able to sell it here - if they export it to other power markets in other countries, they lose any and all value the "green" energy had. Naturally, since Vestas is a danish company and the market leader in windmill manufacture and technology, and their home market is important, we have a lot of steady incomming green energy from windmills.

So, rather than export the green energy, if they build charging stations with lithium ion batteries, they gain a large power-storage infrastructure. So whenever we produce surplus green, or surplus energy in general, it goes into the charging stations, and can then be sold to the car owners at a nice fat premium over what they could get from exports.

Also, Denmark has an amazing market potential because:
- The longest imaginable drive within this country would requirre you to switch batteries no more than 3 times going back and forth
- GPS is insanely accurate here, making it easy to locate charging stations
- Huge car taxes - more than 50% of a cars price here is a straight-up tax. However, it is very likely that electric cars will not have this huge tax. Theres a general political movement towards green taxes, and that would place electric cars at a price-vise advantage, leading directly to higher profits for Renault.
- Denmark is a long thin peninsula and a group of islands, and is therefore incredibly humid, and we have snowy, salty, wet winters - and an electric car design would requirre far fewer moving parts, allowing for a much better encapsulated hull construction because mechanics don't have to mess around with it all the time. This directly prevents corrosion, and therefore improves longevity _a lot_.
- We're used to paying a lot of money for tiny cars with little horsepower more so than any other country in the world. It'll be an easier sell here than anywhere else.

...the sad thing is that Denmark is actually drilling up about as much oil as it's consuming, and the danish commercial trading fleet is using more oil than our cars...so this switch counts for nought in the big picture because we're dirty in our very own peculiar ways, and it'll only serve to make us just about as bad as the americans per capita.]]>May 12th 2008 9:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 13th 2008 9:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 10:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/May 12th 2008 5:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/renault-project-better-place-shows-off-new-electric-sedan-prot/
I'd say that Israel is doing it for green/economical reasons more than for political agenda. It buys oil from OPEC like almost everyone else, so it is no more or less dependant on Arab oil than the rest of the world.
Additionally, this project makes sense in such a small country where the population is by and large concentrated in the center - easier to deploy infrastructure and commute distances are fairly small, I would guess that the daily average is about 60km.]]>May 13th 2008 9:03AM