[oclug] OT Power Thread Was: The Sinnister MS Connection

[Jon Earle]

At 12:45 PM 02/04/01, you wrote:
>On Sun, 04 Feb 2001, Jon Earle wrote:
><snip>
> >    The trouble with solar
> >    power, is that we only have it half the day.  The other half will need
> >    batteries to keep going, and if we have batteries anyway, then why 
> add the
> >    extra weight of solar cells?  I'd rather just pull up every 4-5hrs 
> or so at
> >    a service station for a quick-charge.  Trouble with that is, how many
> >    people will be in line ahead?  It takes just a couple of minutes to gas
> >    up.  It'd probably take at least 20-30minutes to quick-charge an 
> electric
> >    car.  I suppose you could equip each parking stall with a coin-op 
> charger
> >    outlet and hope that Timmy's has a _lot_ of fresh coffee.
><snip>
>You're thinking in terms of a gasoline model.  When a customer pulls into a
>"Power Station," they won't --or ought not to-- be hooking up to cables
>for a charge as in `filling it up' with electricity, they will just
>exchange their exhausted batteries for the Station's pre-charged ones.  The
>station's jobs would be to have a good supply of charged batteries to
>exchange, and charge for the service.  Presto change-o.

Hmm... that's an interesting thought.  You could do this at large 
facilities such as those along the 401, but what would you do in the city 
if you're running out of juice while Christmas shopping or stuck in traffic?

This would also assume that the car manufacturers all decided on a standard 
for power requirements, battery shape and placement (the batteries are 
_heavy_ and so presumably a machine would perform the exchange from under 
or behind the vehicle) and a standard for battery manufacturers to follow.

Jon
---

Fighting a holy war is like killing each other over who has the better 
invisible friend.