Every time a new electric vehicle is announced or I see more information I get excited. The Mini Cooper is a letdown, however. There will only be 500 of them, their US market will be limited, and the cost is beyond reasonable. The Electric Car Blog has more details including cost on it along with some pictures. Wired also has some information. It looks nice, but looks do not justify that cost. It just sounds a lot like the EV1. Will it actually ever become a consumer car?

I am still waiting for an affordable car that can reach 50 MPH, take me at least 30 miles on a charge, and be affordable. I don’t think car manufacturers understand that the market really does exist. With gas prices going back down they seem to believe that consumer demand will also decline. There are still environmentally conscious people who would like to drive a car that does not burn fossil fuels in an inefficient manner.

Image via Wikipedia

I saw an article on CNN today called NASCAR, meet the electric Chevy Volt. I have been watching the Volt story unfold and am very excited about it. I couldn’t wait, however, so I just swapped my 24MPG car for something that gets 36MPG. Some highlights from the article include, as I had hoped, an “electric” performance. If Chevy can blend fun with economical, and I mean economical in both the initial cost and ongoing cost, then they will surely have a winner. Hint: $40k is not economical, and Toyota may get the upper hand.

I still see the occasional ignorance about the Volt as I read other blogs about it. The most common misconception is that it will only run 40 miles on a battery and then have to be recharged for many hours. This is why the Volt is different from many other electric car concepts. The Volt has a generator inside that can charge the battery as the car runs to extend its endurance indefinitely. In other words, this car can get you to and from work (if you are like 75% of all drivers) without spending a penny for fuel, but can also get you to your summer vacation destination. An example complaint is here where Autoblog complains that a range of 360 miles is a terrible thing. I guess they forgot that we have these things called gas stations and they are everywhere. In fact, they even like to build stations right next to eachother, and filling up a guestimated 8 gallon tank to go 360 miles still gives 45MPG and takes all of 5 minutes to do. It would take even a fast driver over 4 hours to drive 360 miles, and my argument is that 4 hours is plenty of time to drive inbetween stretching your legs and using the restroom.

The second poor understanding I see out there has to do with conservation. This includes arguments such as, well it still has a gasoline engine, and well coal fired power plants are just as bad as gasoline engines. I addressed this in an earlier post. The only issue I have here is that if every home did suddenly get one of these overnight, our electric generation and distribution would be unable to handle it. We do need to improve our infrastructure and our capacity, but it will take many years for everyone to get one of these in their garage, and electricity usage will ramp slowly.

The final misconception I want to talk about is the fun factor, and that’s what CNN addressed with NASCAR. What is it really about NASCAR that we like so much? We like the noise, sure, but watching it on television does not provide the same noisy experience as sitting at the track, but we still like that. I think that NASCAR will be able to convert us to quieter cars. The cars will not be completely silent because there will be tire noise, a whine of an electric engine, and even some wind noise to deal with. There is something fascinating about speed and technology. Personally I think that they blend well together, but then I’m a geek and what do I know about NASCAR.