Electric/hybrid vehicles

[Mortblanc]

I have several friends that drive the Gas/electric hybrids and have had good luck with them. They charge themselves as they move along so there is no real connection to the grid.

One friend has a Leaf and reports that the recharge time is 6-8 hours and pulls as much electricity as if one were running the clothes dryer for that period of time. He has 40 mile range, which makes ownership of the unit completely impracticable except that he got the entire cost of the vehicle covered as a tax write off for the government to promote the silly things and brag about how many have been sold. GM, being government funded, attempted to push their little Spark or whatever it was and so many of them caught fire and burned down houses that I believe they stopped production.

I am waiting for the system used by the railways to be applied to passenger vehicles. A unit where a small 3-5hp motor runs a generator which supplies continuous power to the electric motors at each wheel. You would have the power of the electric side of a normal hybred vehicle, extremely high gas mileage, on the order of 50 kpL from the tiny motor, and eliminate the need for the huge bank of batteries now required for all the systems. It has worked efficiently for the railroads for the past 75 years but only BMW has made any effort to promote it for use on the roadways

I do find the systems restricted by the batteries available at the present time. Battery technology is lagging far behind the needs we now have and no one seems to be putting the research or funding into that area.