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Electric vehicles and infrastructure and related commentary.
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Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America
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- CNN Report - My 3 minutes of fame
- Oil hits $140 a barrel; it's time for plug-ins
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3 comments:
What a car! This video shows the lead acid battery EV1 with much lower range. Check out this specification document that show what the 2nd generation EV1 with NiMH batteries can do! Note the range.
http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/ev1_eva.pdf
There are many Toyota RAV4e's on the road today showing that the NiMH batteries are very reliable.
As the video states, virtually no service, so there would be no income for GM after the sale of the car. There's the major reason they killed it. If battery cost was too high, they could have reduced the size of the NiMH battery, put in a engine and been able to directly compete against the Prius that was developed and being sold in limited numbers during the same time the EV1 existed, but GM decided instead to completely remove the technology from the public. Also note they sold the NiMH technology to an oil company, now held by Chevron.
So sad....for GM and the consumer.
Why would GM crush and gut all the EV1s after promoting them like this? The only reasonable explanation that comes to mind is that, in exchange for the NiMH patents, Chevron paid GM even more than what Dave Barthmuss always claims was their "billion dollar" investment in the vehicle. Unconcienable.
I sure wish that I had seen this promo back in 1996: I would have bought an EV1 in a heartbeat. But I never knew, just like the vast majority of American drivers, that they even made the car! Doubly unconcienable.
Ah well... now GM can get our money anyway via tax dollars, right? Triply unconcienable.
I purport that congress should insist that, before GM gets a dime, they have to make public the actual agreement with Chevron. Once and for all.
This whole issue of Chevron suing PEVE (Panasonic + Toyota) battery consortium is an embarassment for this country and shows how oil companies play a dirty game to keep the status quo. Electric cars will cut deeply into their business. This is no conspiracy here. It is a fact that Chevron deliberately decided to suppress large format Nickel Metal Hydride batteries that work so well. Here are settlement docs as part of an 8-K filing by ECD/Ovonics which was then acquired by Chevron:
http://www.ovonic.com/PDFs/Financial_Reports/form_8k/8k_mbi_patent_infringe_settlement_7july04.pdf
That's why there aren't any newer RAV4 EVs on the road. Toyota can no longer make batteries for them!
I just keep imagining if there was no oil company intervention in this business, there would be cars with over 200-mile range on the road today. It is sad that no one ever made a documentary showing this battery technology suppression embarassment.
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