Freethought Nation

9 Things To Know Before Buying An Electric Car

"From The Daily Green:

The buzz in 2011 is about all the new electric cars on the road, led by the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. But because these are new products to the U.S. market, TheDailyGreen.com asked Nick Chambers, who has written about next-generation automobiles for the New York Times, Popular Mechanics and others, to cut through the hype and offer some practical electric car buying tips. He came up with these nine things you should know about electric cars before making a purchase:

1. There Are Two Kinds of Electric Cars

2. There Are Lucrative Federal and State Incentives to Buy Them

3. There Are Three Ways to Charge Them

4. It's Easy To Install a Home Charging Station, But It Costs Extra (Don't Worry, There Are Incentives)

5. Public Charging Stations Are Coming, But The Rollout Will Be Slow and Sporadic

6. All-Electric Cars Are for Daily Driving, Not Cross-Country Road Trips

7. You'll Spend Less On Maintenance, But... (Yes, There's a "But")

8. All-Electric Cars May Not Have Tailpipe Emissions, But They Aren't Emissions Free

9. Electric Cars Are Really Cheap to Operate, But Expect Higher Utility Bills

Refuel An Electric Car In Minutes, Not Hours

Researchers at MIT have come up with an idea to run batteries that on a rechargeable liquid called "Cambridge Crude."

"The technology would allow drivers of electric cars to simple swap discharged liquid fuel with charged liquid fuel literally in minutes.

According to the MIT, the batteries are powered by semi-flow cells, which uses charged particles that are floating in a liquid electrolyte between two containers--one for storing energy and one for discharging energy. This separation apparently results in a 10-fold improvement of energy density, which could provide much greater ranges for electric cars or cheaper and much smaller units. Because of this high energy density, the system does not need to rapidly to deliver its power. “It kind of oozes,” said Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor at MIT.

There is a good chance that we will be seeing this technology in the real world soon. MIT professors Chian and Craig Carter have founded 24M, a company that licenses the technology from MIT. 24M has received $16 million in funding to bring Cambridge Crude to market. Reduced=-scale prototypes for electric cars are expected to be available before 2014."