I’ve been waiting for my practical electric car forever. As a followup to “An Inconvenient Truth”, another movie I need to check out is “Who Killed The Electric Car?” In the meantime, there’s lots of great information at the EV World website. This story explains how Ovonics, through their Cobasys venture, holds a monopoly on the best battery technology (the kind used in the Prius), and rabidly protects it – to the point of slapping Toyota with a gag order and making it illegal for them to manufacture larger NiMH batteries (for use in, oh, say, ELECTRIC CARS). Ovonics has high-level people from GM and Texaco, and the company is all about making a profit, a real shocker there. This is from the front page of their website:
In Ovonics’ defense, Wikipedia states that “over a period of about 40 years, it is estimated that ECD (Ovonics) spent half a billion dollars before any profit was made.” Ouch. Not sure how to get the ball rolling faster on this one…
This story explains why a plugin car is better, here’s the 2-second ballpark summary:
20-Mile Drive
20-mpg car takes 1 gallon = 24 lb co2
20-mile-range plug-in hybrid takes 5kW hours = 5 lb of coal = 7 lb co2
And the winner… my bike! 0 lb of co2, whoop! :P
