Posted in technology, travel on April 21st, 2009 by feef
Start-up Bee pledges ‘affordable’ British e-car • Register Hardware.
http://www.beeautomobiles.com/
It may still only be “vapourware”, but the Bee One is an interesting and possibly viable electric car for thoe of us who have, up till now, not been able to see quite how electric vehicles would ever replace petrol power, at least in the near future.
Two of the reasons I’d not consider an electric car yet are range and charge-time.
With removeable battery backs like this, it could pretty much address those issues. Granted, you’re still looking at 1/2 the range of an ICE powered car, at around 200 miles, but being able to carry a spare, charged cell and swap it quickly, as well as being able to swap out cells at “petrol stations” would pretty much cure these shortcomings.
It does bring another issue to the fore, however. Should all electric car manufactures settle on a standardised form-factor for power cells, such that they are common to all makes? And how does Bee and the like plan on encouraging fuelling stations to start accepting stocks of cells, when it’s taking money away from their main business of selling fossil fuels?
It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.
Tags: battery powered, bee automobiles, bee automotive, bee one, electric car, environmentally friendly car, fuel cell