How do laptops exist then? I mean most work days are longer than a typical laptop will hold a charge for. I guess people generally don't bother with portable computers in general because of the battery issue.
I think even you have to agree laptops are diffrent.
Let me ask you , how long does it take to change out the leaf's battery ? How long does it take to change out a laptop battery ?
Let me ask you , how long does it take to charge a laptop , how long does it take to charge the leaf .
Also many times you can stop and charge a laptop when you can. i.e in a car ride , in a train , on a plane , in the office. But how do you charge the car while your driving ?
So in this instance , if i'm driving to alantic city i need to go 160 miles. The leaf only goes 70. So I'm going to have to stop at least twice to charge. Leaf charing takes up to 7 hours.
On a gas engine or the volt it would take me 0 fill ups to make this trip and less than 3 hours of driving. With the leaf it would take me upwards of 17 hours
Actually it can take more reading up
using a 100v connection it would take 16 hours to charge . If i can find a 220v charging station it would cut that into half at 8 hours. if i'm lucky enough to find a place to use the fast charge option would take just 30 minutes. However each station will cost $45 thousand to install.
So as it is now the leaf doesn't really work for everyone and we'd have to either see charging stations become as common as gas stations or battery range go up . Most likely we will need both. I'm not sure most people will want to stop every hour on a road trip to charge a battery for 30minutes to just drive another 30 minutes.
...Because telling people to change their "culture" due to it being unsustainable would be too onerous for them and simply too much to ask, right?
Or how about designing a car that fits peoples needs ? I'd have no problem driving an electric car as long as it has a way of doing what i need it to do.
I have no problem buying into a volt like tech where I can use the battery 90% of the time and then when i go on road trips or you know live my normal life I don't have to get stuck in the middle of no where.
Like i said , work is almost a 30 mile commute for me round trip. That is already close to the volts range. Lets say I want to go vist my gf. Well she is another 13 miles out of the way. So i'm now past the volt range at 46miles for my day. I pick her up and she wants to go run errands. well now I'm driving around doing that. Lets say thats another 10 miles worth of driving. I'm up to 56 miles for the day. But wait , i have to go another 13 miles to get home after droping her off. Boom I'm up to 69 miles. Its in the leafs range according to reviews but what if its cold like to day at 16f . Will i make it home ? Who knows lets just play with my life and everyone's on the road to see if my car stops moving suddenly.
AlphaWolf The problem is that people do travel longer distances on occasion. While you may not often drive more than 50 miles in a given day, for many people there are quite a few days in a year that they would. Owning a separate vehicle is an additional expense, and an additional impact on the environment.
They need some fast charge stations, or quick battery exchanges, or extended battery packs for rent before electric vehicles are a realistic option as a replacement for many people.
exactly. I have it pretty good as alot of things are close by. If i vist my cousin who is work in upstate new york he has to drive for a half an hour to hit a target. his local gamestop is 20 miles away. hell his job is over 30 miles each way. I can imagine in some southern states there is quite alot of space between things.
People can also run out of fuel in the middle of a highway I don't really see the difference. So long as theres enough battery life for 2-3 days of normal use, it'll be enough to meet the needs of most people since it is uncommon for people to drive >50 miles in any particular day unless they have an obscene commute, which isn't all that common.
I think you'd be surprised how quickly it can add up for alot of people . Not to mention that alot of people wont even have a place to charge the car.
Personaly these companys like Nissan need to get their charging stations out there. They need to make a deal with a gas company and put the charging stations at every location in the country . They need to make a deal with mc donalds and put at least one in every location.
Until charging stations become common these vehicals wont take off.
Don't get me wrong. I think it be great if we could all move to electric vehicals and drasticly cut our oil dependancy. I just simply don't see a senario in the next 10-15 years even where an all electric car makes sense for everyone. I'm sure as this decade goes on and we go into the next one the electric car will grow and expand to ecompass more and more people and life styles but I don't when it will be able to ecompass everyone.
I think hybrids like the volt design and the prius are good middle grounds for alot of people and we need to see more effort put into those along with full electric vehicals.
Mabye we wont be able to get off gas completely but mabye in the next decade or two we can cut our gas use by a third or two thirds.
P.S why do these cars only have 1 100v plugs ? Can't they find a way to allow you to plug into two spots for faster charging
