Day 8 Really?

It's day 8 in the habit-forming department.  I know I feel better knowing that.  Well, maybe not - but whatever.  I'm here now, I might as well write about something... Something topical, ... in the news... GM!  Just saw a little something about the Chevy Volt.  Some guys from the NBC got to take the test-mule out for a drive.  They seemed impressed in a muted way.  So far, that project has been proceeding how I hoped it would.  It's taking a bit longer than I thought it might, but I guess there are many things that have to be considered when creating a whole new infrastructure.  Saw something from gm-volt.com - they referenced the NBC site, plus have lots of other info on the Volt.

This was the vehicle I always thought the Prius was, until I found out more.  The Prius has a big battery, but it doesn't have enough juice to run very long on straight electron power.  Once I heard that, I wasn't interested in the Prius at all.  When GM hinted they would make a series hybrid - one where the electric motors move the car and any engine is used to generate electricity - I began watching with great interest.  I guess the biggest disappointment with the whole project so far is that if GM had kept the EV1 project alive, they would have had the incremental engineering improvements that only come from tinkering with production models.  I took an electronics shop class in high school, and the teacher was an electrical engineer who used to work for GM.  He told us that one of his first jobs in Detroit was helping to test an electric Cavalier in the early 80s, if I remember correctly.  I think I remember seeing something about Henry Ford tinkering with an electric Model T at one point.  The problem has always been with the battery storage systems.

Another interesting tech-bit I saw recently was on the development of hybrid lead-acid/ultra-capacitor batteries.  That's the kind of thing that could lead to interesting things for me.  Like nice buffering systems between a wind/solar generation system and my home.  The ultracapcitor part makes the battery suitable for the high-voltage operations that occur when generating wind power and are neccessary for handling electrical grid changes.  For stationary applications, this technology will bring the cost of such systems down, as they are about 1/4 the cost per Watt of NiMH batteries, which are cheaper than Lithium-Ion batteries.  Which the Volt uses.  On a hybrid, the rapid charge/release cycles used in acceleration and regenerative braking make normal lead-acide (ie. car batteries) unsuitable.  Lithium-Ion and NiMH can store/release energy quickly, with Lithium-Ion having the higher storage density.  Lead acid technology is cheap, and combining them with some ultracapictor techonology provides the rapid charge/release capability for a small additional cost.  I would love to have a solar system that charges are large battery pack that I can use to power my furnace and computer when the power goes out.  

Anyway, I'm still interested in the Chevy Volt, although there will be about 2.5 years until I could possibly own one.  And it sounds like those expensive batteries will make it pretty expensive, so that's less appealing.  On the other hand, I wouldn't mind being part of something that changes the way vehicles operate.