120 Volts Please

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, got into a tiff with a journalist who was reviewing one of Tesla's cars on a long endurance run out of city limits.

The jist of the story is that Musk claims the journalist ignored tips to increase the life of the battery.

I've heard that there is some movement on building electric car infrastructure on the prairies for increasing the range of electric vehicles.

I had to get my car an oil change so I went down to a licensed Ford service centre and while I was looking through the lavishly laid out vehicle brochures, I noticed that the Ford Fusion has the option to charge on a 120 volt outlet versus a 240 volt outlet.

So we see the slow rise of the electric vehicle beginning.

Here is one conundrum that needs to be addressed when it comes to electric cars and range.

If your on the highway and your gas tank is about the hit empty, you fill up and go on your merry way.

No such luck with an electric battery which needs a few hours to charge to give you any range.

This is the Achilles' heel of electric cars for long distance travel.

Certainly battery technology will keep improving, but without a near instant recharge that allows someone to get going at least as quickly as filling an empty gas tank, electric cars will be a hard sell to a large number of the general public.

So how do we get a 120 volt recharge quickly?

I remember seeing a commercial where someone is developing a way to wirelessly recharge a battery.

Crazy that you can recharge a car battery as you drive with 1's and 0's!

So that's a possibility, hmm, what about a solar power 'skin' that can cover the vehicle that is wired into the battery? That can certainly top off battery life albeit only during the daytime.

I've got it! This is mad scientist territory where we harness the power of a lightning bolt.

Certainly we don't need all the power of a lightning bolt, but that's the instantaneous charge idea we need to develop.

I'm going to start working on a prototype. Patent pending!