From June 2009 to June 2010 I had the privilege of Driving an All Electric MIMI E for a year, it was a great experience, and got me hooked on electric cars. I've since moved on to other electric cars which I will blog about.

Monday, July 20, 2009

no MINI E for a week

We've been on vacation for the last week, had a great time, Mountain biked in Vermont, Climbed Mt Washington in New Hampshire, and Ocean Kayaked in Maine, put 1400 miles on the car, unfortunately it wasn't the MINI E, which had to site allone the Garage for a week.
It was a great trip but I couldnt help thinking it would have been better driving electric. 90% of our driving was on highways, and I really believe that the future is to electrify the highway system, like electric trains, they dont carry masses and masses of batteries, they get most of their power just from the lines over head or a third rail, and just carry enough power to get over short gaps in the rails. I think the future of electric vehicles is like that with cars and semi-trucks getting power directly from the power system while on the highway, with batteries or electric generators for local driving.
Then we can power not just short range commuters but our entire Goods distribution system, from electricity generated locally, and from renewable resources. As long as we power our trucks, buses, trains and ships with Oil, cars are just a small piece of the problem, and we need to look at solutions that solve the overall problem.
While overhead wires would be unsightly, and a high voltage rail would be dangerous, there are other options such as, a smart system that only powers the rail when a car is in motion over it, or a magnetic induction system a powerful magnetic field on the road surface powering cars, or many small low voltage rails on the surface, and cars using thier whole surface area underneath to recieve power, or some combination. I'm sure there are many other ways power could be transferred to a moving vehicle, these are just a few off the top of my head I'd like to see investigated.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Is there anyway you could take a look under the hood and tells us what parts are in the vehicle? Like who makes the battery pack? I'm very curious.

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  2. Well the inner parts are not accessible, most of the electronics is in a metal locked footlocker sized box, which we've been told not to open.
    I do know that the battery pack and motor were designed and assembled by AC propulsion, and that they buy the individual batteries from a Canadian company that manufactures them in Taiwan, I cant remember the name.
    see details

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