Back in the 70's, we experienced drastic fuel shortages causing many people dumped their gas-guzzlers and buy economy compact vehicles giving better mileages.  There was a lot of talk about electric vehicles but not a lot of progress for the next thirty years.  The funny part was that as fuel prices drop, mileage dropped as well.  Some SUV's today are lucky to get 10 mpg in town.

Something strange happened a number of years ago.  It seems the focus switched from electric battery driven vehicles to fuel cells.  Not quite sure why, some say it is because the batteries are costly and do not last long enough.  Others speculate that it is easier to keep a supply chain dependency going with fuel cells since they will require fuel stations where you can recharge electric vehicle about anywhere.  I am not sure what the try reason is for the switch, but I think the battery driven vehicles sound safer, especially in the case of large highway pileups.

Hybrids

People are now flocking to buy the new hybrid gas/electric vehicles.  It seems many dealers cannot keep up with the demand.  However, do these new hybrids really save what they cost?  I have an older Ford Explorer that gets almost 25 mpg on the highway and 20 around town.  Some of the specs of the new hybrid SUV's have them in the 35-40 (and a few new ones listed at 32 in the city and 28 on the highway). 

Considering a hybrid is usually at least $7,000 more than a standard version, it is a lot of money to justify.  Even if you found one that doubles your mileages, it could take more than two to three years to break even.

Mass market of Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles?

Our government has allocated $318 million for both fuel cells and hydrogen production research in this year's budget (2005).  They plan to research the feasibility of producing hydrogen fuel cell based vehicles for the mass market by 2020.  Yep, they are looking at 15 years before being readily available.  That is a long time to wait! 

Recently, I watched a documentary about Iceland replacing their vehicles with hydrogen fuel cell transportation along with generating all this power to make the hydrogen from geothermal resources they have.  They are moving at full steam.  Already they have 70 percent of their energy needs are met with geothermal and hydroelectric power.  They expect to be completely fossil fuel free by 2050 and plan to be a leading exporter of energy.  (Note: a quick scan on msn search for the keywords "Iceland" and "hydrogen" will provide a ton of information on their projects).

Maybe it is time to drop researching and move on to production in the USA.  It seems the USA is falling behind in yet another industry.

New battery technology

The big problem with battery driven electric vehicles are the batteries.  In the past, batteries were heavy and had a small life span before needing to be replaced (which is expensive).  Another downside is they take so long to recharge.  It is doubtful that a person wants to stop every 100-200 miles of a trip for a several hour wait while their car is recharged.  Of course, this is not a big problem if you are using it strictly for commuting to work locally.

A few years ago, I saw a news blurb about a couple guys who used a large number lithium laptop batteries to power a car.  The advantage was that the batteries would last longer than previous technology, hold a charge longer and be easy to recharge using household current.  I wanted that car ;)

Toshiba recently announced they have built a new lithium-ion batter using nano technology allowing it to be lighter and have the ability to take an 80% charge within one minute.  This is great news to the electric vehicle market as it could mean that using battery based electric vehicles that recharge in about the time it would take to fill up the tank of gas.  This could open many doors to get electric vehicles out in the market.  Toshiba says they plan to bring this technology to production in 2006.  Good going Toshiba!

(More information on the new batter can be found at: http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/topstory/000881)

Conclusion

With the current state of the world resources declining as mentioned in many reports of late and global warming becoming everyday news, it is important to look for alternatives to produce electricity and switch to electric vehicles, depending more on electricity than fossil fuels. With the many sources of electricity generation such as geothermal, wind, solar, waves, ocean currents, boifuels and hydro in addition to possible new sources on the horizon, it would be foolish to move slowly.  The time is right for the move to electric power on almost everything.

I personally expect to explore this horizon more and have an electric vehicle by this time next year if I can work it out.  At least one for local driving!