Bumper Cars as an Alternative to Electric Cars?

Imagine taking a really stupid idea, multiplying it by a few million and setting it loose on the streets of America. No, I’m not talking about hybrid SUVs (this time). A website called Low-Tech has decided that, instead of focusing on increasing the battery life of electric cars, we should just get rid of the batteries all together. How? By re-introducing the ‘bumper car’ cable system.

Treehugger has it:

“Batteries are the flaw of electric cars, and not only when considering the environment. Electric cars are not yet a reality because of the limited mileage of their ‘fuel tanks.’ At best, an electric car can drive 100 or 200 miles. After that, the car has to be plugged in for hours.” Their suggested alternative: bumper car technology, where electricity is fed to the vehicle directly from the grid.

Kris De Decker reminds us that in many countries, there are networks of trolley cars and vehicles that use overhead wires for power yet drive on the road like a conventional vehicle. ” Like electric cars, the environmental score of a trolleybus depends on the way the electricity was generated. However, a trolleybus (just like a tram or an electric train) does not face the problem of energy storage. Therefore, the problem with the electric car is not that it’s electric, but that it’s wireless.”

What a mess that would be. Aside from the obvious problems of requiring massive, expensive overhauls of our road system and being unable to pass each other on the highway, a Treehugger commenter named Ross sums up our sentiments on the issue nicely:

So they’re proposing something like one of those newfangled train machines?

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Flickr user brainware3000

The Green Cell Battery Vending Machine is an Awesome Model

I went to the Greener Gadgets Conference a few weeks ago and caught the green design competition at the end of the day. One of the entries that was presented made absolutely no sense to me- the Green Cell battery network.

The idea is to standardize cell phone and gadget batteries and sell them in a vending machine. People would switch out batteries via the Green Cell machine when they run down, getting a fully charged one in return. The designers of Green Cell think this is better than charging up your battery at home because you wouldn’t have to buy a ton of different adapters for all your hand held gadgets.

Really?

Am I missing something here? Do they really think people will buy into a system where they need to run out to a vending machine every time their cell phone or iPod batteries die? Wouldn’t the extra gas to make the trip offset any savings from not having to make the extra adapters in the first place? I plug in my cell year old cell phone once every day or two, I’ll be damned if I had to run down to the store to get a new one 3 times a week.

I think model is flawed. I doubt many people change out their gadget batteries in the first place- they just get a new one when they buy their new phone or MP3 player. Standard battery sizes are something the tech industry needs to embrace, but does it make sense to sell/lease batteries in a vending machine? No, I don’t think so.

I’m a dumbass. See Jill’s comment below.

Link [Inhabitat]