Comments on: More Grid-Friendly Vehicles

By: Alan P. Hayes

Alan P. Hayes — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:24:30 +0000

One of the major issues with renewable electricity sources is variable supply. The way that it is often put is that even with plenty of wind and solar you still need plenty of coal oil and nukes for those times when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun don’t shine. All of those projected car batteries can provide part of the necessary buffer while they would otherwise just be sitting unused in the back yard or the parking lot at work!

By: Jos Conil

Jos Conil — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:17:18 +0000

The concept is great. But it is better to unlock the grid by focusing on innovative, personalized public transport systems than trying to generate power from the gridlock.
In any case the problems of crawling traffic, dust and noise pollution are not avoided by introducing green vehicles.
Of course, green automobile technologies like these have to be encoraged, but it should go hand in hand with a public transport revolution.

By: Justwatching

Justwatching — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:59:24 +0000

This guy must think it is April the !st!

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:10:38 +0000

How about adding solar cells to the vehicle to assist in charging on the road and when stopped. Then plug into the grid for full charge when not in use, then when fully charged the solar panels can feed int the grid.

By: russ

russ — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:35:01 +0000

Without any more details about this concept it is something like a Madoff scheme. Cycling the battery, which is a weak area of electric autos, will possibly shorten it’s life.

From the article – ‘According to some claims this can provide a utility value of $4000 per year to a vehicle owner! Where this 4,000 dollars per year comes from is a total mystery. Certainly not from power generated when the auto is operating – a black box maybe!