Get Charged Up for Project Get Ready, a Planet Forward Nominee

I live off-grid with a 3kwatt solar pv power source.
During long storms (two or more dark cloud days) I use a 1KW generator to re-charge the battery bank.
What do I need to do to service either a Leaf or a Volt?

Electricity is not as inexpensive as gas; vehicles for commuting will need to be smaller. And you will want to investigate battery swapping like it is illustrated in The New Electric Vehicles Book. Renewable energy generated electricity and/or non food crop hybrid vehicle fuels will need to play greater roles. Not needing to drive around so much help too.

People that do not know history are bound to repeat its mistakes; and people that do not know history ALSO FAIL TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LESSONS AND SOLUTIONS AVAILABLE FROM HISTORY. For instance:

1. Electric vehicles were the most popular automobiles in America between 1890 and 1925.

2. “Plug in” recharge stations known as “Electrants” (posts with recharge cords) were once available from New York City to Albany, and then, to Buffalo.

3. “Plug in” battery recharge time was just as inconvenient then as it will be today; nobody driving long distance will put up with even a two hour “fast recharge”, especially because it will be expensive compared to an eight hour “off peak” slow charge.

Believe it or not, this problem was solved over a century ago… and already has been solved (with new technology) today!

The first use of electric vehicles as 24hr. non-stop transportation was as a fleet of taxicabs on Manhattan in 1898. One electric taxi (and two drivers/12 hour shift) could replace six horses, six drivers… plus feeding, grooming; eliminate street and air pollution from stinking horse feces and urine… besides providing 40 miles of transportation per battery charge while a horse could only do 25 miles per shift.

At a central Taxi Livery, depleted electric batteries were simply swapped for fully charged batteries; Manhattan was a small geographic area that kept the electric taxis close to the centralized recharge battery station!

Today, Nissan Leaf automobiles are designed with batteries that can be exchanged in an automatic robotic “drive through” service station… where depleted batteries are swapped within three minutes: the driver pulls into a drive through like “Jiffy Lube” or a “stationary” car wash; rolls down the door window, swipes a payment card… and within a minute or two gets a green light indicating their car battery is exchanged for a fully charged battery.

Just as the United States lost its steel industry; just as Eastman Kodak evaporated… so too is Exxon Mobil about to disappear as an “obsolete” technology giant of America’s past… think about how America’s steel and photography industries once were world pioneers and leaders (one decade), only to disappear within two decades… because they did not keep up with new technology in their industries!

Ironically, refinery “giants” simply need to convert their “company owned” gasoline service stations into “battery exchange and recharge” service stations in order to continue supplying energy for personal electric automobiles into the 21st Century and beyond.

The Nissan Leaf is actually a 21st Century electric “Model T”… it is “mass produced” to 21st Century “state of the art” passenger expectations… and it has available “drive through” recharge and “exchange” service station technology to allow long distance travel with current battery power capacity. Today, it is not be comparable to internal combustion engine vehicles with 130 years of development and improvement, but neither was the “Model T” (at the beginning of the 20Th Century). However, like the Model T, the Nissan Leaf is simply something “revolutionary for its time” (today).

By the way, New York City just had a “Taxi for Tomorrow” study and “Request for Proposals” to establish a new commercial taxicab design that will improve service for the next ten years and replace passenger car conversions to commercial taxi service: here to, even New York City fails to eliminate all emissions and keep taxi fares level for the next ten years… they have chosen another “internal combustion engine” vehicle instead of harnessing Nissan Leaf electric vehicle technology.

(New electric taxicabs for New York City could replace their depleted batteries at “drive on” exchange stations “moored on barges” surrounding Manhattan Island and along the Hudson River and Long Island. This would require “zero” real estate for old fashioned taxi livery stations while allowing the taxis continuous service with only ten or fifteen minutes per shift to exchange depleted batteries.

People that do not know the history of electric vehicles are bound to miss the opportunities “built into” electric vehicles to expand their limited battery range as well as to completely eliminate emissions and to diminish the increasing cost of transportation… gasoline is bound to increase in price far more quickly than electricity.

“Innovation” is the art of taking an idea or technology from inspiration to marketplace at a profit: politicians and academics do not understand the real world marketplace… they tax and spend OPM (Other Peoples Money)… they make video about “subsidized” projects instead of building new 21st Century electricity production and automobile technology with “zero” emissions and effectively unlimited energy and range capacity.

Planet Foward cannot make progress into the future if it does not know the lessons and cycles of technology from the past.

Even America’s automobile manufactures are behind Renault-Nissan electric vehicle and recharge service station innovation. “Entrenched” financial and manufacturing interests, ignorance of history’s lessons and achievements, and focus on goals to do things that are not being done, that can be done… to benefit the most people “here at home in America” as quickly as possible… these are the reasons for economic crisis and stagnation in 21st Century society.

As quickly as America gets its house in order, that is how quickly the entire world economy will step up to a new ecologically friendly and prosperous standard of living: that is the lesson of world history through the 21th Century, and is the opportunity for the 21st Century and beyond!