Electric Vehicles in Depth, Part II: NmG, An EV for the Rest of Us {Autoblog Green}

Jun 16th 2006 4:46PM These ROI arguments are spurious. They start from a misleading position - which is:

Why use prohibitively expensive Optima batteries?

Heck, you can buy a generic car battery for $50.00. Look for them on sale and you can get 'em closer to $40.00.

Do some searching and you might find that you pay less for amp hours using motorcycle or golf-cart batteries.

Throw some Battery Equalizer in them and don't discharge them so totally flat, and you'll get years and years out of them.

If you want to be unscrupulous, you can get one for a few bucks more with a 24 month replacement guarantee.

Notice how much room there was in the back of that buggy? Put some stiffer springs on it and throw a few more batteries in if you don't have enough range.

Either that, or toss a portable generator in there, and set it to start up if the voltage drops below 10V. You'll get way more MPGs than a hybrid because the little generator is more efficient - this is because ICEs most efficient when running at WOT.

The main cost in EVs it having to build one from scratch, it's much more expensive to do a custom one-off than 10,000 off an assembly line.