Gasoline -- on its way to $10/gallon

[Kärnfysikern]

Karn from what I understand, when the prius was designed a big problem was making the battery last as long as the car, batteries last between 7 to 10 years. The solution the engineers came up with was to keep the battery pack between 60% and 40% charged, this greatly extended battery life. Plug in hybrids allow you to fully charge the battery diminishing battery life. Not to mention I just paid a little over 10k for a car that gets 30 miles to the gallon with 20k miles on it. They want 30k for a new prius. That's a lot of gas.

I guess it depends on the battery. Lithium-ion batteries do not get diminished life by recharging, but they instead gradualy get worse even if not used at all.

Why is nobody working on a fully battery powered car? Solving the heat issue with L-ion batteries could provide a car with reasonable range. It would make a great soloution for families with two cars. I'm sure they can out do the 70 mile range of the ev-1 with today's battery technology by quite a bit.

There are fully battery powered car. If you have money
http://www.teslamotors.com/
I have no clue why the big car companies are not building them. Perhaps they are afraid no one will buy them with the limited range?

What if the economic pain is coming in the form of a huge depression in my lifetime?

I think we have to count on that. Even the most optimistic scientists say the peak will be around 2020-2030. Others say its now.

its going to be a little more then some economic pain. And it would last for a long time. Its not like things could change overnight even if everyone was on board 110%

Yeah it will last until we find a working alternative to oil unfortunaly. The situation the west is in now is entirely our own making.

[Kratos]

There are fully battery powered car. If you have money
http://www.teslamotors.com/
I have no clue why the big car companies are not building them. Perhaps they are afraid no one will buy them with the limited range?

That car is frickin sweet, see what i'm talking about, 220 mile range and accelerates like a super car. Trade a little of the performance and you could make a car with even a bit more utility with at least that range. 110 grand no thank-you, but with mass production battery cars could be even less expensive than gas powered. I didn't know anybody was putting L-ion batteries in cars, I thought the issues with excess heat still needed to be solved. All the hybrids as far as I know are still Ni-mh