Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Cell phone batteries in cars

The interesting thing about this story, noting that General Motors has unveiled a prototype electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, is the part about batteries. "GM hasn't given a date when consumers can buy the Volt because the advanced lithium-ion batteries needed to power the vehicles -- similar to technology used in cellphones -- are still years from widespread use in automobiles," according the the Washington Post story.

"Similar to technology used in cellphones." That's an interesting bit of technology crossover if it works. It strikes me -- I don't know all the details behind this development -- as an adaptation more likely to happen in a free economy rather than a planned economy. I've been fascinated by the capabilities of a cellphone, even though I use mine mostly to stay in touch with family. But the fact that they can pack Internet technology, a video camera, games and other cool stuff into such a small package is pretty neat. So who came up with the idea that a similar battery might be able to power a car (the battery problem -- they're clunky and heavy and take up a lot of room so far -- and the fact that they're more expensive, has deterred real progress toward consumer-friendly electric cars despite tax breaks and other inducements) with a similar battery? Colleagues probably told him or her it was a crazy idea at first. But not all crazy ideas turn out to be crazy.

I wouldn't mind at all if somebody came up with a practical electric car. I drove a prototype somebody -- I think the electric company -- brought around to the paper 10 or 12 years ago, and while it didn't have much pick-up it negotiated city streets quite satisfactorily. But the battery took up a huge space and it was considerably more expensive than a comparable gasoline model. And it didn't catch on.

The advantage to leaving development to the private sector rather than having the government offer inducements like tax credits or development subsidies is that the necessity to make a profit tends to concentrate the mind on coming up with something consumers might actually want to buy for more than it costs to make it. Subsidies distort that equation and induce false signals.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

an extensive line of acer md95400 btp-93gm btp-92gm 40010430 Battery acer md95400 btp-93gm btp-92gm 40010430 Laptop Battery from At Battery Company comes with 6 month warranty

Anonymous said...

The parts supplied by our Company are [replacement for] sold for use with certain products of parts manufacturers, and any reference to products or trademarks of such companies is purely for the purpose of identifying the SMT or AI manufacturers with which our products [are replacement for] may be used.

Anonymous said...

We supply a large range of rechargeable Laptop Battery packs for your Laptop , All Laptop Battery in our website are made with high quality cells. Shipping with us is 100% secure guaranteed.

Anonymous said...

sir,i love your blog.as your blog is very well.you give expression to your literary grace

Anonymous said...

Good words.

Anonymous said...

Interesting post... Looks like solid state memory is really beginning to become more popular. Hopefully we'll start seeing a drop in solid state harddisk prices in the near future. 5 dollar 32 gig SDs for your Nintendo DS flash card... sounds good to me!

(Posted on NetPost for R4i Nintendo DS.)