On July 21, 2008 the Plugin 2008 conference began in San Jose, California. Tien Duong of the US Department of Energy and Fritz Kalhammer discussed the State of Battery Technology for electric vehicles. Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries are on their way out. Most Lithium Ion (LiOn) batteries meet DOE performance requirements. Some exceed it to last ten years. To be commercially viable they need to cut the cost in half. The next generation of battery technology showing promise may be LiFePO and LiTiO.

Thirty-nine years ago Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. On later missions astronauts drove a moon buggy. They could put an electric car on the moon and I can’t get one in my driveway. I’ve tried to buy an earthbound electric car with little success. Text from DJCline.com

Hybrids are nice but I would still be buying gasoline. I want to charge my car with solar panels on the roof of my house. Every day the sun sends the equivalent of millions of barrels of oil crashing down on us and we ignore it. Instead we dig deep for sludge we throw up in the air… that blocks out the sun. Text from DJCline.com

My local General Motors dealer doesn’t have any Chevy Volts in stock yet. Ten years ago GM made an electric car but would only lease it to people. They took them all back and crushed them in a junk yard as seen in the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car. I’m sure GM executives wish they had kept making them instead of gas-guzzling boxcars with cupholders they are currently stuck with. Text from DJCline.com

As much as I love the Tesla it is a little pricey even for me. It has no cargo capacity and they’ve sold out this year’s production capacity. If I find anything I’ll let you know. Text from DJCline.com

Here are some pictures from the event.

Copyright 2008 DJ Cline All rights reserved.

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