Eletruk

I have played with the Kinect SDK for windows, but have yet to think of any real-life useful application to apply it to.

Apparently you haven't seen the GE charge station commercial, that's where they put them. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO7lKaAB5Dg


Oh, and check out http://mychargepoint.net
You can see what charge stations are available and make reservations (and it can text you when your charge is done or car unplugged).

I think you overestimate the load an EV puts on the grid. A standard Level2 charge station is 6.6Kw, or about the same as an electric dryer or water heater.

A 110V outlet doesn't really provide enough energy. A typical EV gets about 300Whr/mile, a 110V outlet would charge about 1650W/hr or basically can charge about 5.5 miles/hour. So an overnight charge with 110V (8 hours) would get you at most 44 miles, not allowing for charging losses.

Zero emissions also depends on the electricity source. My electricity comes 100% from wind, solar, and cow manure. And I live in the NW where 70% comes from Hydro. So you really can't get much more zero emissions than that.

Dang, I was looking for that.
Interesting the the number is going down, maybe better insulation around the catalytic converter.Or those vehicles that might catch fire, have caught fire, and so the number decreases?

According to the National Fire Protection Association, there were 258,000 vehicle fires in 2007 and 385 deaths.

More and more cities are now adding EV provisions into multi-family requirements. However that does nothing to address the issue with the hundreds of thousands of existing apartment complexes. When I stay at a friends apartment, I have a 150 foot 12 gauge 220V extension cord I plug into the dryer outlet, and run out the window and down to the parking garage. I have to take it back in every day because I got complaints about it hanging out the window. If I was living there, I would consider talking with the HOA about installing a charge station (they actually have a decomissioned car was spot that would be perfect) but probably I would have to foot the bill to install it. Although in the Seattle area, they might qualify for a free charger.

Wow those estimates are wildly optimistic. WIth the earthquake in Japan, the Leaf will not hit 25K this year. Event the Karma hitting 1000 this year is highly unlikely.

The good news is the LG battery plant is open now, but they can only ramp up to 100K battery packs a year, and they are the biggest. So unless we get more battery lines running, those numbers just aren't going to happen.

I would say shift the plan over by a couple years, and you may hit the 1.2 million by 2017.

And yea, I don't see Chevy ever selling 120K Volts a year, not at their current price.

Over his left shoulder you see what I think is it, at 1:07 they pan across the test bench.

Not when gas hits $5 a gallon.