Hence I think ‘range extender’ engines would more properly called ‘fast refill’ or some such. All electric can be made with plenty of range, but it is decades away from a quick refill. That being the case (you cant go any distance with out stopping for the night) then the PHEV concept of ~40 miles a sound target.

Unless he has acess to some new storage technology that we do not know about then I would be curious to know about the reasons behind his decison not to make a REV.

Dan

http://www.b2i.cc/Document/546/KEMA_Carina_validation_report_public_final.pdf

Long story short, the batteries work well going from full charge to full discharge and back with sub second response and minimal heating achieving >90% efficiency at a .96% power factor. If further experience with clustered installations is equally favorable, this will be how power producers stabilize the grid having mega-batteries installed at substations and at wind/solar sites. Because their use eliminates the need for an “active reserve” (excess generation done to maintain voltage and cycling standards during periods of sharp increases in demand) that’s mostly wasted as heat, utilities will achieve a 3% reduction in fuel cost that means these comparatively expensive batteries will, nevertheless, pay back in months and last for years.

Altair batteries owe their unmatched power handling and long life to a chemistry and architecture that results in a vanishingly low internal resistance (comparable to a gold to gold switch contact). It appears that because they have an extended Depth of Discharge capability, a 12kwh Altairnano battery could match the performance of an 18kwh A123 battery in the Volt, just about overcoming the apparent energy density shortfall. When Altairnano decides to commit to more automated production methods to bring the price down, these would become a fine choice for any PHEV – until then, Made in the USA and a 3% emissions reduction for power producers aren’t all bad.

The 1.4 l non turbo turns out to have a lower SFC and actually weighs LESS than a on older I3-turbo design. Great engineering decision GM. You had the balls to do the right thing. Just like chopping the gas tank size to prevent lots of stale gas, was the right thing to do, too.

Regarding Mr. T Boone Pickens.

Yes he has an isolated set of windmills in a Utility in the outback of East Cupcake whereever Texas.

His mini-grid is unstable and frequently crashes. He desperately needs to tie into a Big Grid to damp out the oscillations produced by variable, gusting, wind generation, so his mini-grid will stabilize.

And of course, given the right of way, you grant him, well then ,you may as well build a pipeline to bring to market some stranded Natural gas, that he happens to have too.

Only green know-nothings don’t anticipate any problems with their solar and windmill solutions.

The UK electric utility that runs 2000 windmills says theirs wear out and are junk in 9 years. And only work 24.% of the time. It seems you can’t run them when wind is too low (less than 8 mph) and too strong, (greater than 33mph) or at all, if they destabilize the grid. And when they do operate, seldom do they run at nameplate rated generation, because the wind isn’t blowing exactly that hard.

Did you ever wonder why the early electricity guys back in the 1880-90s, never hooked up generators to the windmills they already had, back in those early days? And it wasn’t a Big Oil conspiracy. They did build hydroelectric generation, after all.

They just were not as ignorant as pseudo-green know-nothings.