Thursday, July 17, 2008

CNN's Miles O'Brien on Electric Cars (updated)

Occasionally, we need to look at some related content here and in this case it is a CNN piece on Electric Cars.  In the story, they interview Marc Geller who has created his own electric car that he charges each night.  Geller's interesting quote in response to a question of why Detroit hasn't embraced a plugin technology yet:  "I would say because they are fearful of how disruptive plugin cars will be and how unattractive their old product line will appear. "   Geller generates some of his energy himself with solar panels on his roof.  Says Miles, "There isn't a new, practical electric car on the market."

I like O'Brien stories.  It seems to me like he is keen on getting news of alternative energies out into the mainstream. 

I've located a bit more web info on Marc Geller.  First, he's a photographer and here's his website:  http://www.marcgeller.com.  Second, here is his blog about plugin cars
Third, he links to Plug In America  which will tell you all about plugin vehicles along with a bit of grass roots political action you can take to support them. There is a petition addressed to Automakers to tell them you want plugin technology.   See also, the Electric Auto Association

It looks like there is alot of activity on the website and alot of big names being drawn in. It will be great to see if some of that crowd is following the EEStor story and I would really hope they leave a comment here on this post with any additional information they have for this readership. 

Your Chance to ask EEStor a Question

Yesterday, as I was continuing some efforts to do some fact checking, I spoke to an official at EEStor who provided me with alot of no comments and then something different:  an offer to submit a set of questions for board approval to which EEStor would respond in writing.  Now, let me say this very clearly:  I do NOT know if I am being played here or if the offer is genuine. But I was told whatever outcome would be turned around fairly quickly.  My sense is that the list of questions I submit may all get rejected. Then again, I won't know til I submit them.   So in pondering what questions to submit and asking a few interested parties what they thought, it occurred to me that if you read this blog and participate in the discussions, why not solicit some questions from the reader---many of whom in all likelihood have much better questions than I do.   

So, with the above caveat that this may not bear any fruit, I'm throwing it open and asking you to help me get some questions together for EEStor.   Use the comment field.  I'm probably going to moderate the comments so people actually do feel comfortable submitting questions--fair warning to any grumpies out there. 

I asked myself why would they do this now?  In my conversation with the EEStor official, I learned that they feel that some of the discussion about them on the Internet is just plain wrong.  Additionally, I was told, "Alot of people are focused on the wrong things right now.  If they would just put their thinking caps on and take out a calculator, they could figure out some things themselves."  I asked, "So do you read what they say about EEStor on the Internet?" and was told, "Yes and most of it is incorrect."   Additionally, with regard to some of the naysayers who come at EEStor with this or that scientific grounding for why what their doing is impossible, I was told, "There's alot of people in the scientific community with blinders on and if they would open up and look around even outside the USA, they would be opened up to alot more information. There's going to be alot of people with egg on their face."

On a related note, and for what it is worth, I was told that the website design for EEStor is almost complete.  Does that mean it's about to be turned on or is even built?  Dont know.  

Oh yeah, what about the other info I havent posted yet?  Stay tuned!  :-(

EEStor vs other battery technologies



This has been reported elsewhere but thought it was a good addition to the blog.